Publication Date:
2023-01-16
Description:
During the last two decades, the Etna volcano has undergone several sequences of lava
fountaining (LF) events that have had a major impact on road conditions, infrastructure and the
local population. In this paper, we consider the LF episodes occurring between 2011 and 2022,
calculating their erupted volumes using the images recorded by the monitoring thermal cameras
and applying a manual procedure and a dedicated software to determine the lava fountain height
over time, which is necessary to obtain the erupted volume. The comparison between the results
indicates the two procedures match quite well, the main differences occurring when the visibility
is poor and data are interpolated. With the aim of providing insights for hazard assessment, we
have fitted some probabilistic models of both the LF inter-event times and the erupted volumes of
pyroclastic material. In more detail, we have tested power-law distributions against log-normal,
Weibull, generalised Pareto and log-logistic. Results show that the power-law distribution is the most
likely among the alternatives. This implies the lack of characteristic scales for both the inter-event
time and the pyroclastic volume, which means that we have no indication as to when a new episode
of LF will occur and/or how much material will be erupted. What we can reasonably say is only that
short inter-event times are more frequent than long inter-event times, and that LF characterised by
small volumes are more frequent than LF with high volumes. However, if the hypothesis that magma
accumulates on Etna at a rate of about 0.8 m3
s
−1 holds, the material accumulated in the source region
from the beginning of the observation period (2011) to the present (2022) has already been ejected. In
simple terms, there is no accumulated magma in the shallow storage that is prone to be erupted in
the near future.
Description:
This research was funded by Project FIRST—ForecastIng eRuptive activity at Stromboli
volcano: timing, eruptive style, size, intensity, and duration, INGV-Progetto Strategico Dipartimento
Vulcani 2019 (Delibera n. 144/2020; Scientific Responsibility: S.C.).
Description:
Published
Description:
6183
Description:
6V. Pericolosità vulcanica e contributi alla stima del rischio
Description:
JCR Journal
Keywords:
lava fountains
;
automatic detection
;
Etna
;
04.08. Volcanology
Repository Name:
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
Type:
article
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