Abstract
Unrest at large calderas rarely ends in eruption, encouraging vulnerable communities to perceive emergency warnings of volcanic activity as false alarms. A classic example is the Campi Flegrei caldera in southern Italy, where three episodes of major uplift since 1950 have raised its central district by about 3 m without an eruption. Individual episodes have conventionally been treated as independent events, so that only data from an ongoing episode are considered pertinent to evaluating eruptive potential. An implicit assumption is that the crust relaxes accumulated stress after each episode. Here we apply a new model of elastic-brittle failure to test the alternative view that successive episodes promote a long-term accumulation of stress in the crust. The results provide the first quantitative evidence that Campi Flegrei is evolving towards conditions more favourable to eruption and identify field tests for predictions on how the caldera will behave during future unrest.
Highlights
Unrest at large calderas rarely ends in eruption, encouraging vulnerable communities to perceive emergency warnings of volcanic activity as false alarms
Large calderas with areas of 100 km[2] or more are among the most-populated active volcanoes on Earth
They commonly show episodes of unrest at intervals of B10–102 years[1] and, the minority end in eruption, each raises concern that volcanic activity might be imminent
Summary
Unrest at large calderas rarely ends in eruption, encouraging vulnerable communities to perceive emergency warnings of volcanic activity as false alarms. Large calderas with areas of 100 km[2] or more are among the most-populated active volcanoes on Earth They commonly show episodes of unrest at intervals of B10–102 years[1] and, the minority end in eruption, each raises concern that volcanic activity might be imminent. With an unprecedented 2,000-year record of historical unrest and eruption[2], Campi Flegrei provides key insights for understanding the dynamic evolution of large calderas. The largest ground movements recorded since Roman times have been concentrated near the modern coastal town of Pozzuoli at the centre of the caldera (Fig. 1). They have been dominated by a secular subsidence of c. The crust contains a distributed population of faults that are much smaller than the dimensions over which deformation has occurred
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
