Water Cycles and Geothermal Processes in a Volcanic Crater Lake

Abstract

Exploring how the hydrological and thermal conditions of a volcanic lake change in response to volcanic activity is important to identify the signs of a volcanic eruption. A water cycle system and a geothermal process in a crater lake, Okama, in the active Zao Volcano, Japan, were explored by estimating the hydrological and chemical budgets of the lake, and analyzing the time series of lake water temperature, respectively. In 2021, the lake level consistently increased by snowmelt plus rainfall in May–June, and then stayed nearly constant in the rainfall season of July–September. The hydrological budget estimated during the increasing lake level indicated that the net groundwater inflow is at any time positive. This suggests that the groundwater inflow to the lake is controlled by the water percolation into volcanic debris from the melting of snow that remained in the catchment. Solving the simultaneous equation from the hydrological and chemical budgets evaluated the groundwater inflow, Gin, at 0.012–0.040 m3/s, and the groundwater outflow, Gout, at 0.012–0.027 m3/s in May–September 2021. By adding the 2020 values of Gin and Gout evaluated at the relatively high lake level, it was found that Gin and Gout exhibit highly negative and positive correlations (R2 = 0.661 and 0.848; p < 0.01) with the lake level, respectively. In the completely ice-covered season of 15 December 2021–28 February 2022, the lake water temperature increased between the bottom and 15 m above the bottom at the deepest point, which reflects the geothermal heat input at the bottom. The heat storage change during the increasing water temperature was evaluated at a range of −0.4–5.5 W/m2 as the 10-day moving average heat flux. By accumulating the daily heat storage change for the calculated period, the water temperature averaged over the heated layer increased from 1.08 to 1.56 °C. The small temperature increase reflects a stagnant state of volcanic activity in the Zao Volcano. The present study could be useful to investigate how an active volcano responds to water percolation and geothermal heat.