Geophysical imaging of subsurface structures in volcanic area by seismic attenuation profiling

Abstract

Geophysical imaging by using attenuation property of multichannel seismic reflection data was tested to map spatial variation of physical properties of rocks in a volcanic area. The study area is located around Miyakejima volcanic island, where an intensive earthquake swarm was observed associated with 2000 Miyakejima eruption. Seismic reflection survey was conducted five months after the swarm initiation in order to clarify crustal structure around the hypocenters of the swarm activity. However, the resulting seismic reflection profiles were unable to provide significant information of deep structures around the hypocenters. The authors newly applied a seismic attribute method that focused seismic attenuation instead of reflectivity to the volcanic area, and designed this paper to assess the applicability of this method to subsurface structural studies in poorly reflective volcanic areas. Resulting seismic attenuation profiles successfully figured out attenuation structures around the Miyakejima volcanic island. Interestingly, a remarkable high-attenuation zone was detected between Miyakejima and Kozushima islands, being well correlated with the hypocenter distribution of the earthquake swarm in 2000. The high-attenuation zone is interpreted as a fractured area that was developed by magma activity responsible for the earthquake swarms that have been repeatedly occurring there. The present study can be one example showing the applicability of seismic attenuation profiling in a volcanic area.Graphical .