Phys.org June 21, 2021
Volcano monitoring of gas emissions provides insights into when explosions are likely to happen and unravel processes driving eruptions. An international team of researchers (UK, New Zealand) obtained data from the Sentinel-5 Precursor satellite, which had passed over Whakaari, New Zealand, shortly after it began erupting. By applying an algorithm to the data, they were able to reconstruct the events that had led to the volcano erupting. They found that SO2 flux and plume height data retrieved from TROPOMI satellite imagery before, during, and after the eruption showed that SO2 was detected without explosive activity on separate days before and after the explosion, and that fluxes increased from 10 to 45 kg/s ~40 min before the explosion itself. According to the researchers high temporal resolution gas monitoring from space can provide key insights into magmatic degassing processes globally, aiding understanding of eruption precursors and complementing ground-based monitoring…read more. Open Access TECHNICAL ARTICLEÂ
Tremor and SO2 mass time series and scatter plot of pixel flux versus injection altitude. Credit: Science Advances 18 Jun 2021: Vol. 7, no. 25, eabg1218.Â