A Summary of Precursors to Volcanic Eruptions in Papua New Guinea

Abstract

A review was made of the 50 eruptions since 1930 at 16 volcanoes in Papua New Guinea to summarize the available information on precursory activity. The data show that a variety of seismic, ground deformation, thermal and chemical precursors have occurred at many of the volcanoes. Seismic precursors were the most commonly reported (11 cases), and for volcanoes that were instrumented with seismometers, seismic precursors were identified for 8 of 14 eruptions. The occurrence of felt earthquakes before eruptions appeared more often at the volcanoes that had not been active for more than 50 years and had higher silica compositions.