Abstract
In-situ seismic observations identified that volcanic activity of Ioto (formerly Iwojima), a volcanic island offshore Japan, increased in early September 2018. Observations of discolored nearshore waters and a splash reported by a local flyover provided evidence for a connection between undersea eruptions and recorded seismic activity. However there remain uncertainties as to when the undersea eruption series commenced and how much of the in-situ seismic activity recorded on the island was associated with volcanic earthquakes versus undersea eruptions. During this period, a large number of underwater acoustic (hydroacoustic) signals were recorded by the Comprehensive Nuclear-Test-Ban Treaty (CTBT) International Monitoring System (IMS) hydroacoustic station HA11, at Wake Island (U.S. Territory), in the northwestern Pacific Ocean with signals with directions of arrival consistent with sources located at Ioto. The analysis presented here interprets signal features of the remote hydroacoustic recordings provided by HA11 in order to attempt to distinguish between volcanic earthquake signals and undersea eruption signals originating from Ioto. Histograms of hydroacoustic events interpreted as originating from Ioto correlate well with the in-situ seismic observations at Ioto in the early stage of volcanic activity. The results presented suggest that around 75% of the signals detected at HA11 with directions of arrival consistent with Ioto as their origin could be associated with undersea eruptions, supporting the conclusion that the IMS hydroacoustic stations can contribute to volcanic event remote monitoring.
Highlights
Substantial volcanic activity occurs along the Izu-Ogasawara-Mariana arc volcanic chain of islands and seamounts where the Pacific plate is subducting beneath the overlaying Philippine Sea plate[1,2]
In the 1950s, it was demonstrated that hydroacoustic events originating from the Myojin volcano in Japan were detected on hydrophone arrays deployed within the Sound Fixing And Ranging (SOFAR) channel axis at a distance of approximately 8,000 km[4]
Ocean bottom hydrophone observations were employed for the in-situ measurements of undersea volcanic activity of the Vailulu’u seamount in the Territory of American Samoa and of the Brothers volcano in New Zealand in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, these observations contributing to studies of the local seismicity and the internal dynamics associated with magma injection processes of submarine volcanoes[15,16]
Summary
Substantial volcanic activity occurs along the Izu-Ogasawara-Mariana arc volcanic chain of islands and seamounts where the Pacific plate is subducting beneath the overlaying Philippine Sea plate[1,2]. Ocean bottom hydrophone observations were employed for the in-situ measurements of undersea volcanic activity of the Vailulu’u seamount in the Territory of American Samoa and of the Brothers volcano in New Zealand in the southwestern Pacific Ocean, these observations contributing to studies of the local seismicity and the internal dynamics associated with magma injection processes of submarine volcanoes[15,16]. A study conducted in 2006 consisting of direct visual observations[17] and in-situ acoustic measurements performed by a Remotely Operated Vehicle (ROV) equipped with a hydrophone[18] investigated undersea volcanic eruptions from the Northwest Rota-1 seamount of the Northern Mariana Islands. The recorded hydroacoustic signals were used to investigate the eruption mechanism[27]
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