The 2014 Effusive Eruption at Stromboli: New Insights from In Situ and Remote-Sensing Measurements

Abstract

In situ and remote-sensing measurements have been used to characterize the run-up phase and the phenomena that occurred during the August–November 2014 flank eruption at Stromboli. Data comprise videos recorded by the visible and infrared camera network, ground displacement recorded by the permanent-sited Ku-band, Ground-Based Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (GBInSAR) device, seismic signals (band 0.02–10 Hz), and high-resolution Digital Elevation Models (DEMs) reconstructed based on Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data and tri-stereo PLEIADES-1 imagery. This work highlights the importance of considering data from in situ sensors and remote-sensing platforms in monitoring active volcanoes. Comparison of data from live-cams, tremor amplitude, localization of Very-Long-Period (VLP) source and amplitude of explosion quakes, and ground displacements recorded by GBInSAR in the crater terrace provide information about the eruptive activity, nowcasting the shift in eruptive style of explosive to effusive. At the same time, the landslide activity during the run-up and onset phases could be forecasted and tracked using the integration of data from the GBInSAR and the seismic landslide index. Finally, the use of airborne and space-borne DEMs permitted the detection of topographic changes induced by the eruptive activity, allowing for the estimation of a total volume of 3.07 ± 0.37 × 106 m3 of the 2014 lava flow field emplaced on the steep Sciara del Fuoco slope.

Integration of Ground-Based Remote-Sensing and In Situ Multidisciplinary Monitoring Data to Analyze the Eruptive Activity of Stromboli Volcano in 2017–2018

“…For this reason, many scientific studies and actions devoted to volcanic risk mitigation have been promoted in the following years. About fifteen years of geophysical and geochemical observations allowed the scientific community to highlight variations in the eruptive activity that prelude the beginning of the effusive phases [1,5,24,37,39]. Also in the period considered in the present paper, at the beginning of December 2017, the analyses of seismic, video-camera, geochemical, infrasonic and geodetic data allowed us to highlight a rise of the magma level in the conduits and to issue a warning, which leads the civil protection authorities to raise the alert code from green to yellow on 7 December 2017.…”

“…In the last decades, the eruptive history of Stromboli was dominated by three effusive flank eruptions, which occurred in 2002-2003 [13,33,34], in 2007 [1,5,35] and in 2014 [36][37][38][39], all within the The red diamond indicates the average source centroid, obtained from the polarization parameters, located 450m above sea level; the blue dots are the seismic stations. (d) The automatic locations of a subset of the VLP events recorded in 2012 carried out by the EOLO system (http://eolo.ov.ingv.it/eolo/).…”

“…In the last decades, the eruptive history of Stromboli was dominated by three effusive flank eruptions, which occurred in 2002-2003 [13,33,34], in 2007 [1,5,35] and in 2014 [36][37][38][39], all within the SdF depression and associated with hazardous phenomena. At the end of 2002, the beginning of the flank eruption was associated with a landslide along the SdF that triggered a tsunami, which damaged the coast of the island [40][41][42].…”

“…The last effusive phase, which occurred in August-November 2014 [36,37], was preceded by overflows and increased Strombolian activity [39], and followed by a low eruptive activity period lasted until mid-2017, when a reawakening phase began. A more intense explosive activity started in May 2017, continued in the following months and led the Italian Civil Protection Department to decree the "attention" alert level (yellow code) on 7 December 2017, based mainly on seismic, thermal video-camera and geochemical observations that indicated a rise in magma level inside the upper conduits.…”

Environmental Aftermath of the 2019 Stromboli Eruption

“…The persistent Strombolian activity is characterized by intermittent explosions from three vent areas (NE, SW, and Central) located in a summit crater terrace [4,5]. This activity is often punctuated by lava overflows from the crater terrace, and/or by flank eruptions, with the outpouring of lava flows from lateral vents [6,7], or by stronger explosions [8]. At Stromboli, wildfires with a small extensions have been observed following intermediate intensity explosions between ʺordinaryʺ activity and paroxysmal explosions (locally called major explosions [8]), whereas large-scale wildfire have been triggered by paroxysmal explosions (as in 1768, 1879, 1891, 1906, 1916, 1919, 1930, 1936, 1941, 1943, 1944 and 1950; [3]).…”