Seismic Scattering Property Changes Correlate With Ground Deformation at Suwanosejima Volcano, Japan

Abstract

Continuous estimation of changes in seismic velocity and seismic scattering property by passive interferometry using seismic ambient noise is a promising tool for monitoring volcanoes. To improve the usefulness of this method, it is necessary not only to detect subsurface structural changes but also to quantitatively compare the estimated changes in seismic wave velocity and seismic wave scattering property with other observations, such as ground deformation. We applied passive interferometry to continuous seismic records from the Suwanosejima volcano, Japan, recorded between April 2017 and December 2021. We detected repeated significant waveform decorrelations in seismic ambient noise cross‐correlation functions (CCFs), indicating changes in seismic scattering property in the shallow areas of the volcano. These decorrelations were observed from 2 weeks to a few days before the increase in the number of explosions, suggesting that seismic scattering properties changed significantly during that period. We found that the timing of the decorrelation in seismic ambient noise CCFs and tilt changes related to magma accumulation and injection beneath Suwanosejima were well synchronized. The high correlation between the amounts of decorrelation and the tilt change during the magma accumulation period possibly suggests that a large volume of accumulated magma caused great changes in the scattering property. These results provide a significant first step toward a quantitative comparison of the amount of changes in the scattering property with the amount of magma accumulation beneath volcanoes.