Decaying Lava Extrusion Rate at El Reventador Volcano, Ecuador, Measured Using High‐Resolution Satellite Radar

Abstract

Lava extrusion at erupting volcanoes causes rapid changes in topography and morphology on the order of tens or even hundreds of meters. Satellite radar provides a method for measuring changes in topographic height over a given time period to an accuracy of meters, either by measuring the width of radar shadow cast by steep sided features, or by measuring the difference in radar phase between two sensors separated in space. We measure height changes, and hence estimate extruded lava volume flux, at El Reventador, Ecuador, between 2011 and 2016, using data from the RADARSAT‐2 and TanDEM‐X satellite missions. We find that 39 new lava flows were extruded between 9 February 2012 and 24 August 2016, with a cumulative volume of 44.8M m3 dense rock equivalent and a gradually decreasing eruption rate. The average dense rock rate of lava extrusion during this time is 0.31 ± 0.02 m3 s−1, which is similar to the long‐term average from 1972 to 2016. Apart from a volumetrically small dyke opening event between 9 March and 10 June 2012, lava extrusion at El Reventador is not accompanied by any significant magmatic ground deformation. We use a simple physics‐based model to estimate that the volume of the magma reservoir under El Reventador is greater than 3 km3. Our lava extrusion data can be equally well fit by models representing a closed reservoir depressurising during the eruption with no magma recharge, or an open reservoir with a time‐constant magma recharge rate of up to 0.35 ± 0.01 m3 s−1.

Thermal, Deformation, and Degassing Remote Sensing Time Series (CE 2000–2017) at the 47 most Active Volcanoes in Latin America: Implications for Volcanic Systems

“…Thank you to reviewers John Pallister and David Pieri as well as associate editor Martha Savage for improving the quality of this paper. The raw data used in producing these time series are publically available through WOVOdat (http://www.wovodat.org/) data table can be found at https://doi.org/10.25921/e9h5-ke08 (the following citations are included in the supplementary information: Aiuppa et al, ; Anderson & Segall, ; Arnold et al, , ; Bagnardi, ; Bagnardi & Amelung, ; Baker, ; Barnhart & Lohman, ; Champenois et al, ; Chaussard et al, ; Delgado, ; Delgado et al, ; Delgado et al, ; Ebmeier et al, ; Ebmeier et al, , ; Ebmeier et al (); Ebmeier et al, ; Ebmeier et al, ; Feigl et al, ; Fournier et al, ; Henderson & Pritchard, ; Henderson et al, ; Holtkamp et al, ; Huppert & Woods, ; Jay, ; Jay et al, ; Jay et al, ; Lyons et al, 2014; Lau et al, ; Le Mével et al, ; Lundgren et al, , ; Lyons et al, ; McCormick et al, ; McTigue, ; Mirzaee & Amelung, ; Morales et al, 2017; Morales et al, 2016; C.G. Newhall, ; Odbert et al, ; Pinel et al, ; Pritchard et al, ; Pritchard et al, 2013; Richter et al, ; Ruch et al, ; Salzer et al, ; L. Schaefer et al, ; Schaefer et al, ; Schaefer et al, ; Stephens & Wauthier, ; Velez et al, ; Wnuk & Wauthier, ; R. Wright, ; T. J. Wright, Parsons, et al, ; Yang et al, ).…”

Catching Geomorphological Response to Volcanic Activity on Steep Slope Volcanoes Using Multi-Platform Remote Sensing

“…Strong explosive events, rheomorphic lava flows and intracrateric lava flows [44,53] October 2010 Intracrater lava flow from the SWC vent (19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26) October 2010) [44,53] December 2010-January 2011 Strong explosive events, intense spattering and overflows from the SWC [44,53] March Slope instability phenomena at Stromboli are classified, on the base of their size and movement, into three types [2,62]: (1) "deep-seated gravitational slope deformations" evolving to "rock or debris avalanches" from the SdF (volumes > 10 6 m 3 ); (2) "rock (rotational or planar) slides" evolving to "rock avalanches" from the SdF (volumes ≈ 10 6 m 3 ); and (3) "rock falls" or "gravel/debris slides" evolving to "gravel/debris flows" (volumes ≈ 10 5 m 3 ). The greatest hazard associated with large-scale landslides (type-1) at Stromboli is their ability to generate tsunamis, whose effects can propagate far away from the source areas [63,64].…”

Load Stress Controls on Directional Lava Dome Growth at Volcán de Colima, Mexico

“…The satellite has a continuous 11 day return orbit and a 12 h time gap between the chosen ascending and descending acquisitions, resulting in constant temporal data acquisition and providing a good overview of the visible changes at Volcán de Colima and thus its eruptive activity. Due to the rapid changes and temporal decorrelation of the SAR signal at dome building volcanoes (Walter et al, 2015;Wang et al, 2015;Arnold et al, 2017;Chaussard, 2017), we investigate the amplitude information rather than the phase information.…”