Snow Avalanche Detection and Source Constraints Made Using a Networked Array of Infrasound Sensors

Johnson, J. B.; Anderson, J.; Marshall, Hans‐Peter; Havens, S.; Watson, Leighton M.

doi:10.1029/2020jf005741

Cited by 14 publications

(10 citation statements)

References 39 publications

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“…The seismic source locations are in better agreement with the location of coarse‐grained PDC deposits than the fine‐grained PDC deposits (Figure 4). By comparison with other surficial mass movements such as debris flows and snow avalanches (Allstadt et al., 2018; Johnson et al., 2021; Marchetti et al., 2020; Watson et al., 2021; Zhang et al., 2021), PDC seismic signals are thought to be generated by the dense basal flow exerting forces on the solid Earth. Hence, the seismic‐derived PDC source locations are likely to be more closely related to the coarse‐grained deposits than the fine‐grained deposits that are derived from the dilute cloud of hot gas and ash that surrounds the dense basal flow.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking a Pyroclastic Density Current With Seismic Signals at Mt. Etna (Italy)

2023

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Pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) are dangerous flows of volcanic rock and gas that are the most deadly proximal volcano hazard. There is significant interest in better understanding PDC dynamics, however, they are challenging to study due to their extreme hazard, unpredictable occurrence, and because complex internal dynamics are obscured by visually opaque clouds of ash. PDCs exert forces on Earth's surface and generate seismic waves. Here, we use seismic data recorded by the permanent monitoring network at Mt. Etna (Italy) to track the 11 February 2014 PDC at second‐scale temporal resolution and calculate a maximum velocity of 76 m/s (274 km/hr). We identify multiple pulses and show that the late‐stage source locations correspond with the mapped coarse‐grained PDC deposits. High temporal and spatial resolution measurements of PDC movement from seismic data can be used to inform numerical modeling of PDC dynamics and aid in hazard assessment by improving our understanding of PDC flow paths. This work illustrates how seismic signals can be used to track surficial mass movements in real‐time.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tracking a Pyroclastic Density Current With Seismic Signals at Mt. Etna (Italy)

2023

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“…Further study is needed to accurately model the infrasound generation from surficial mass movements (cf. Coco et al 2021;Johnson et al 2021) so that infrasound observations can be reliably used to quantitatively constrain flow properties and improve hazard mitigation efforts. In tandem, methods to detect potentially weak signals of surficial mass movements within realistic persistent and variable background noise must continue to be developed to achieve robust monitoring capabilities (Sanderson et al 2021).…”

Section: Volcanic Sourcesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Volcano infrasound: progress and future directions

Watson¹,

Iezzi

Toney

et al. 2022

Bull Volcanol

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Over the past two decades (2000–2020), volcano infrasound (acoustic waves with frequencies less than 20 Hz propagating in the atmosphere) has evolved from an area of academic research to a useful monitoring tool. As a result, infrasound is routinely used by volcano observatories around the world to detect, locate, and characterize volcanic activity. It is particularly useful in confirming subaerial activity and monitoring remote eruptions, and it has shown promise in forecasting paroxysmal activity at open-vent systems. Fundamental research on volcano infrasound is providing substantial new insights on eruption dynamics and volcanic processes and will continue to do so over the next decade. The increased availability of infrasound sensors will expand observations of varied eruption styles, and the associated increase in data volume will make machine learning workflows more feasible. More sophisticated modeling will be applied to examine infrasound source and propagation effects from local to global distances, leading to improved infrasound-derived estimates of eruption properties. Future work will use infrasound to detect, locate, and characterize moving flows, such as pyroclastic density currents, lahars, rockfalls, lava flows, and avalanches. Infrasound observations will be further integrated with other data streams, such as seismic, ground- and satellite-based thermal and visual imagery, geodetic, lightning, and gas data. The volcano infrasound community should continue efforts to make data and codes accessible and to improve diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field. In summary, the next decade of volcano infrasound research will continue to advance our understanding of complex volcano processes through increased data availability, sensor technologies, enhanced modeling capabilities, and novel data analysis methods that will improve hazard detection and mitigation.

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“…While many anthropogenic and volcanic explosions appear to be well-characterized by a simple volumetric source, more complex sources including buried chemical explosions (e.g., Blom et al, 2020;Kim et al, 2020), complex volcanic explosions (e.g., Iezzi et al, 2019;Johnson et al, 2008;Jolly et al, 2017), or mass movements (e.g., Johnson et al, 2021) may require a directional source component. Unfortunately, most infrasound sensors are placed on Earth's surface, thus the full acoustic radiation pattern in field studies is not adequately sampled (e.g., Matoza et al, 2013).…”

Section: Acoustic Directionalitymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Multipole inversions allow for a more in depth understanding of potentially directional acoustic sources such as those from complex volcanic explosions (e.g., Iezzi et al, 2019;Johnson et al, 2008;Jolly et al, 2016Jolly et al, , 2017, buried chemical explosions (e.g., Blom et al, 2020;Kim et al, 2020), and mass movements (e.g., Johnson et al, 2021). Recent studies (e.g., Blom et al, 2020;Kim et al, 2020) have found that acoustic wavefields created by underground explosions have strong vertical directionality which cannot be accounted for by a simple monopole source.…”

Section: Application Of Inversions To the Topography Of Yasur Volcano...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Synthetic Evaluation of Infrasonic Multipole Waveform Inversion

et al. 2022

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Acoustic source inversions estimate the mass flow rate of volcanic explosions or yield of chemical explosions and provide insight into potential source directionality. However, the limitations of applying these methods to complex sources and their ability to resolve a stable solution have not been investigated in detail. We perform synthetic infrasound waveform inversions that use 3‐D Green’s functions for a variety of idealized and realistic deployment scenarios using both a flat plane and Yasur volcano, Vanuatu as examples. We investigate the ability of various scenarios to retrieve the input source functions and relative amplitudes for monopole and multipole (monopole and dipole) inversions. Infrasound waveform inversions appear to be a robust method to quantify mass flow rates from simple sources (monopole) using deployments of infrasound sensors placed around a source, but care should be taken when analyzing and interpreting results from more complex acoustic sources (multipole) that have significant directional components. In the examples we consider the solution is stable for monopole inversions with a signal‐to‐noise ratio greater than five and the dipole component is small. For most scenarios investigated, the vertical dipole component of the multipole explosion source is poorly constrained and can impact the ability to recover the other source term components. Because multipole inversions are ill‐posed for many deployments, a low residual does not necessarily mean the proper source vector has been recovered. Synthetic studies can help investigate the limitations and place bounds on information that may be missing using monopole and multipole inversions for potentially directional sources.

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Snow Avalanche Detection and Source Constraints Made Using a Networked Array of Infrasound Sensors

Abstract: The detection and study of rapid gravity-driven mass movements using infrasound is a growing area of research and includes studies of hazardous flows like lahars (

Cited by 14 publications

References 39 publications

Tracking a Pyroclastic Density Current With Seismic Signals at Mt. Etna (Italy)

Tracking a Pyroclastic Density Current With Seismic Signals at Mt. Etna (Italy)

Volcano infrasound: progress and future directions

Synthetic Evaluation of Infrasonic Multipole Waveform Inversion

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