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The Santorini arc volcano in the Hellenic subduction zone has a history of caldera-forming Plinian eruptions, most recently in the Late Bronze Age 3.4 kya, and it remains volcanically active. To inform volcanic hazard assessments, it is crucial to understand where melt is distributed. The PROTEUS experiment in 2015 recorded >14,000 controlled marine sound sources on 165 land and seafloor seismic stations. Tomographic inversion of this data revealed low P-wave velocities in the upper 4 kilometers beneath the caldera and nearby Kolumbo seamount interpreted as the magma system (McVey et al., 2020; Chrapkewiecz et al., 2022). However, structure of the magma system was only determined in the upper (<4-6km) crust and melt content is only weakly constrained. In this study we improve constraints on the deeper magma system and subsurface melt content with a tomographic P and S wave velocity structure. To do so, we add to the inverse problem arrival times from ~1500 local earthquakes with magnitudes from 0.5 to 3.0 that occurred between 5 and 20 km depth. The events were recorded on 142 3-component ocean bottom and island seismic stations that span the seafloor ~60 km west and east of the island and the nearby islands. Results beneath Santorini and Kolumbo suggest that the upper crustal magma reservoirs extend deeper than previously found, and we image a high Vp layer (~5-8 km) under the magma reservoir at Kolumbo. We identify this layer as strong, cooled, intruded magma and correlate it to the location of earthquakes, within which, swarms of rapidly upward propagating seismicity support prior inferences of melt conduits traversing a rheologically strong layer (Schmid et al, 2022). We give values for melt content of the upper crustal reservoirs using a scaled Vp/Vs model. Since the number of arrivals, apriori assigned uncertainty, and differences in ray geometry can result in P and S waves with different resolving power, we use measured resolution to scale the Vs perturbations and create a more realistic Vp/Vs model. The addition of earthquake arrivals allows us to map the magma reservoirs beneath the Santorini-Kolumbo magma system to 8 km depth and identify regions of elevated melt content.
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Heralds of Future Volcanism: Swarms of Microseismicity Beneath the Submarine Kolumbo Volcano Indicate Opening of Near‐Vertical Fractures Exploited by Ascending Melts
Abstract The Kolumbo submarine volcano in the southern Aegean (Greece) is associated with repeated seismic unrest since at least two decades and the causes of this unrest are poorly understood. We present a ten‐month long microseismicity data set for the period 2006–2007. The majority of earthquakes cluster in a cone‐shaped portion of the crust below Kolumbo. The tip of this cone coincides with a low Vp‐anomaly at 2–4 km depth, which is interpreted as a crustal melt reservoir. Our data set includes several earthquake swarms, of which we analyze the four with the highest events numbers in detail. Together the swarms form a zone of fracturing elongated in the SW‐NE direction, parallel to major regional faults. All four swarms show a general upward migration of hypocenters and the cracking front propagates unusually fast, compared to swarms in other volcanic areas. We conclude that the swarm seismicity is most likely triggered by a combination of pore‐pressure perturbations and the re‐distribution of elastic stresses. Fluid pressure perturbations are induced likely by obstructions in the melt conduits in a rheologically strong layer between 6 and 9 km depth. We conclude that the zone of fractures below Kolumbo is exploited by melts ascending from the mantle and filling the crustal melt reservoir. Together with the recurring seismic unrest, our study suggests that a future eruption is probable and monitoring of the Kolumbo volcanic system is highly advisable.
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- Award ID(s):
- 2023338
- PAR ID:
- 10370510
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems
- Volume:
- 23
- Issue:
- 7
- ISSN:
- 1525-2027
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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