Infrasound tremor from bubble burst eruptions in the viscous shallow crater lake of White Island, New Zealand, and its implications for interpreting volcanic source processes

Jolly, Arthur; Kennedy, Ben; Edwards, Matt; Jousset, Philippe und Scheu, Bettina (2016): Infrasound tremor from bubble burst eruptions in the viscous shallow crater lake of White Island, New Zealand, and its implications for interpreting volcanic source processes. In: Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, Bd. 327: S. 585-603

Abstract

White Island volcano, New Zealand, produced two periods (January-February and July 2013) of episodic and persistent eruptions through a viscous shallow mud/sulphur pool. The eruptions included an initial hemispherical bubble burst, which was intermittently followed by an up-channel gas jet, and finally a late stage heaving of a mud/sulphur/water suspension. The late stage heave was systematically directed south-eastward as far as 30-40 m from the vent. The associated infrasound time-series included harmonic tremor on permanent stations WIZ and WSRZ. Detailed inspection showed that the tremor was composed of numerous discrete double pulse events without a strong periodic event repetition. The first pulse had highly similar waveforms event-to-event and a notable distortion of the waveform period between the two infrasound stations located on opposites sides from the directed eruption source. The second pulse occurred about 1.5-2.5 s later and was weakly observed on station WSRZ. Where the video can be rigorously linked to the double pulse infrasound signals we interpret aspects of the distinctive eruptive regimes. For this case, the regime dynamics are driven by the propagation of numerous discrete gas slugs though the shallow viscous muddy crater lake, each generating a distinct bubble burst with subsequent eruption heave and associated double pulse infrasound events. The double pulse events are the source of the persistent harmonic tremor having fundamental and overtone spectral frequencies but are not interpreted as related to cavity resonance or a repetitious comb function. Instead the activity is produced by a single event producing a specific two pulse source time function. The observed distortion in the first pulse wave period at WIZ and WSRZ may be ascribed to a Doppler shift associated with the directivity observed in the initial jet/heave eruption process. We surmise that double pulse source dynamics and directivity effects may be generically extended to some examples of subsurface seismic tremor or for tremor associated with geyser eruptions, mud volcano eruptions, fire fountains from lava lakes and strombolian eruptions. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

• Dokumententyp: Zeitschriftenartikel
• Fakultät: Geowissenschaften > Department für Geo- und Umweltwissenschaften
• Themengebiete: 500 Naturwissenschaften und Mathematik > 550 Geowissenschaften, Geologie
• ISSN: 0377-0273
• Sprache: Englisch