Insights into Mt Etna’s Shallow Plumbing System f

Authors: L Spina A Cannata E Privitera S Vergniolle C Ferlito S Gresta P Montalto M Sciotto

Publish Date: 2014/07/03

Volume: 172, Issue: 2, Pages: 473-490

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Abstract

Previous studies performed on Mt Etna on short and discontinuous time intervals indicate the North East Crater NEC as the most active source of infrasound The source mechanism of NEC infrasound events was modeled as a double resonance This lead to infer the connection between the NEC and both the southeast crater SEC and the eruptive fissure EF that opened at the beginning of the 2008–2009 eruption Nevertheless there are still several open questions that need to be addressed For instance the steadiness of NEC event features should be studied as well as the orderliness of spectral changes of NEC events timerelated to eruptive activity of other vents The investigation of such topics is strongly enhanced by the possibility of analysing infrasound signals during yearlong time periods With this aim about 40000 infrasound events recorded at Mt Etna from August 2007 to December 2009 were analysed by using spectral and location techniques It was noted in particular that the NEC events featured periods with very steady waveforms and spectral characteristics lasting from days to months with slow or sudden variations The most important eruptive episodes occurring at the SEC or the EF were accompanied by significant spectral changes in NEC events In light of such systematic behaviour the connection between the NEC and the SEC/EF plumbing systems was not considered temporary but rather stable even during a relatively long time interval 2006–2009 Moreover study of NEC event spectral features and their changes over multiple years supports the double resonance source model Such a model together with the inferred connections between NEC and SEC/EF feeding systems implies that level fluctuations of a magma column inside the NEC conduit correspond to magmastatic pressure decrease/increase inside the main plumbing system These findings open up new and interesting possibilities for monitoring magma pressure changes inside the Mt Etna plumbing systemWe wish to thank Luciano Scuderi for carefully managing the permanent infrasound network and for the lab tests on the GRAS microphones We acknowledge Sonia Calvari for the lucrative discussions We also wish to thank the FP7MCITN project NEMOH GA Number 289976 for its support This work was partially funded by Grant INGVDPC 2007–2009 project V3 Lava SV wishes to thank IPGP BQR PPF for its support IPGP contribution number We are grateful for the editor and anonymous reviewers for their useful suggestions that greatly improved the paper

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