Monitoring Santorini volcano (Greece) breathing from space

Volcanic Hazard Assessment at Santorini Volcano: A Review and a Synthesis in the Light of the 2011-2012 Santorini Unrest

“…The increased seismicity was accompanied by up to 10 cm inflation of the islands measured by GPS networks and by radar interferometry, corresponding to a modelled volume increase of about 10-20 million m 3 at 3-6 km beneath the northern caldera basin (Newman et al, 2012;Parks et al, 2012;Papoutsis et al, 2013;Foumelis et al, 2013). Small increases in the fluxes of H2 and mantle-derived CO2 also occurred during the unrest (Parks et al, 2013;Tassi et al, 2013).…”

“…The ISMOSAV monitoring network recorded changes in the monitored parameters (seismicity, topographic changes, thermal state, chemistry of the hot fluids and soil gases; Tassi et al, 2013), and campaign measurements also detected changes in soil gas fluxes and compositions (Parks et al, 2013;Rizzo et al, 2015). In addition, GPS networks (Newman et al, 2012) and satellite radar observations detected ground uplift at rates approaching 1 cm/month on parts of the Kameni islands (Parks et al, 2012Foumelis et al, 2013;Lagios et al, 2013), with higher (but unmeasured) uplift rates possibly occurring under water. All of these changes exceeded the limits defining the background state of the Kamenis volcanic center, based on the monitoring network data for the last 20 years.…”

Moving from Temporal Coherence to Decorrelation Time of Interferometric Measurements Exploiting ESA?s SAR Archive

“…The geological setting of Santorini as well as complex relief offers a unique setting for such analysis. In addition, the deformation field of the volcano, as derived from InSAR [16,17] and other geodetic techniques [18,19,20,21], indicate the lack of significant displacements in the period 1992-2010 that would potentially contribute to decorrelation over large temporal spans. Furthermore, the availability of geodetic networks (GPS and levelling) in the island for monitoring its volcanic activity highlight the necessity for evaluation of the capacity of repeat-pass SAR interferometry for deformation mapping in a more quantitative manner.…”

Maximum horizontal range of volcanic ballistic projectiles ejected during explosive eruptions at Santorini caldera

“…For the last 60 years, the volcanic system had been relatively quiet with only minor hydrothermal and seismic activity (Dimitriadis et al, 2009). However, this situation changed in 2011 when significant uplift and increased seismicity rates were detected within the caldera (Newman et al, 2012;Parks et al, 2012;Foumelis et al, 2013;Konstantinou et al, 2013;Lagios et al, 2013;Papoutsis et al, 2013). Even though this unrest did not culminate into an eruption, it did put forward the issue of the volcanic hazards posed by future eruptive activity and how authorities should plan to cope with them.…”