A tentative study on patterns of volcanic activities and their influencing factors

Abstract

Understanding the driving forces of volcanic activity and the laws that govern the occurrence of volcanic eruptions during geological history is of significance for humans to predict future eruptions and reduce volcanic hazards. This study provides an overview of the intensity and distribution of global volcanic activity during the Quaternary, and summarizes the periodicity of volcanic eruptions and their influencing factors. We suggest that on shorter timescales (hundreds of years) volcanic eruptions may be influenced by climate change, earthquakes, and lunar tidal cycles, whereas their correlation with solar activity is not obvious. On longer timescales (2 million years), we counted the temporal variations of the volumes of subaerial volcanic eruptions in the LaMEVE database in steps of 1,000 years. Through energy spectral analysis, we found that there are cycles of 111 and 86 kyrs close to the short eccentricity cycle, 53 and 42 kyrs close to the obliquity cycle, and 20 kyrs close to the precession cycle. These periodicities suggest that changes of eruption volume may be driven by astronomical factors. Our further studies found that for terrestrial volcanoes, interglacial periods are more favorable for large-scale volcanic eruptions than glacial periods, which may be related to the pressure unloading accompanying ice melting during deglaciation. Our preliminary study suggests that the long-period changes in solar radiation, climate, volcanic eruption volumes driven by astronomical cycles and their correlations are urgent scientific questions that need to be solved and can help predict the rules of large-scale volcanic eruptions in the future.