The Thermal Plumbing System of Stromboli Volcano, Aeolian Islands (Italy) Inferred From Electrical Conductivity and Induced Polarization Tomography

Abstract

Stromboli Island is located in the northernmost of the Aeolian archipelago in the Southern Tyrrhenian Sea, Italy (Figure 1). The formation of the Aeolian Islands is related to the subduction of the African plate below the Eurasian plate (Barberi et al., 1974;Keller et al., 1993). Stromboli itself rises from a depth of 2,000 m below sea level to an elevation of 924 m a.s.l. (meters above sea level, see Romagnoli et al., 2009). The emerged part of the volcano developed during the last 100 ka (Rosi, 1980).Stromboli is a permanently active and fairly accessible stratovolcano. It is considered a key natural laboratory for geophysical investigations aimed at better understanding its internal structure and structural control of its hydrothermal activity (Bonaccorso et al., 2003;Chouet et al., 2003;Revil et al., 2004). One of the first geophysical studies performed on Stromboli used land-based magnetic data to map magnetic anomalies related to the volcanic activity (

Statistical Insights on the Eruptive Activity at Stromboli Volcano (Italy) Recorded from 1879 to 2023

“…[106][107][108]. However, the sizes and capacities of the plumbing systems of the two volcanoes are notably different [109][110][111][112][113][114], and this is also testified by the large difference between the erupted volumes. Indeed, effusive activity at Etna results in the output of an average ~30-50 × 10 6 m 3 lava [115][116][117][118], whereas flank eruptions at Stromboli produce on average 3-10 × 10 6 m 3 lava [44,53,[55][56][57][58].…”

“…Despite the small size of its plumbing system, Stromboli was in a steady state for almost 2000 years [75,111,119], with a persistent and mild Strombolian activity that characterises its summit, and with no significant changes in the morphology and position of the active vents within the crater terrace, at least during the last century [120][121][122]. Considering the small size of its plumbing system [113,114], it is conceivable that subtle and limited changes in its shape and or capacity may cause important changes in the frequency of occurrence of eruptive events. In particular, [91] pointed out a several-fold increase in the number of major explosions and small overflows observed between 2007 and 2012 and a comparable decrease in the number of paroxysmal explosions and flank eruptions when compared to the previous period.…”

“…Here, we propose that the NE displacement of the seismicity recorded below Stromboli before the 2007 and 2014 flank eruptions [126], as well as the lateral dike intrusion recorded in 1996 [127], might be connected. In fact, given that the Stromboli feeding system is very small [91,113,114], even a little perturbation at depth might cause an observable change at the surface.…”

Induced Polarization Images the Plumbing System of Hydrothermal Vents in an Intracontinental Rift, Lake Abhé, Republic of Djibouti

“…The plumbing systems of geothermal fields are characterized by alteration halos. Induced polarization is a geophysical technique imaging the conductivity and chargeability of rocks (Vinegar & Waxman, 1984) including at the kilometer scale (Gross et al., 2021; Revil et al., 2023). Induced polarization tomography has been shown recently to provide an efficient approach to image alteration in active volcanoes (Revil & Gresse, 2021).…”