Multiscale fracturing as a key to forecasting volcanic eruptions

Abstract

Among volcanoes reawakening after long repose intervals, the final approach to eruption (∼1–10 days) is usually characterised by accelerating rates of seismicity. The observed patterns are consistent with the slow extension of faults, which continue to grow until they connect a pre-existing array of subvertical fractures and so open a new pathway for magma to reach the surface. Rates of slow extension are here investigated assuming that gravitational loading and magma overpressure create a fluctuating stress field in the country rock. Fluctuations are due to the intermittent growth of small cracks that cannot be detected by monitoring instruments. The rate of detected events is then determined by the frequency with which the concentration of strain energy around the tips of macroscopic faults becomes large enough to permit fault extension. The model anticipates oscillations in seismic event rate about a mean trend that accelerates with time, and identifies the rate of increase in peak event rate as a key indicator of the approach to eruption. The results are consistent with earlier empirical analyses of seismic precursors and, applied to data before the andesitic eruptions of Mt Pinatubo, Philippines, in 1991, and of Soufriere Hills, Montserrat, in 1995, they suggest that, for such volcanoes, reliable forecasts of magmatic activity might eventually be feasible on the order of days before eruption.