Prediction of volcanic activity

Of particular importance is the prediction of hazardous eruptions that could lead to catastrophic loss of life, property, and disruption of human activities.

Risk and uncertainty are central to forecasting and prediction, which are not necessarily the same thing in the context of volcanoes, but both have a process based on past and present data.

The IMS Global Infrasound Network, originally set up to verify compliance with nuclear test ban treaties, has 60 stations around the world that work to detect and locate erupting volcanoes.

Their prediction used research that had been done by Bernard Chouet, a Swiss volcanologist who was working at the United States Geological Survey and who first observed a relation between long-period events and an imminent eruption.

The similarities between volcanic and iceberg tremors include long durations and amplitudes, as well as common shifts in frequencies.

On May 28, just two weeks later, sulfur dioxide emissions had increased to 5,000 tonnes, ten times the earlier amount.

[6] Multi-GAS measurements of CO2/SO2 ratios can allow detection of the pre-eruptive degassing of rising magmas, improving prediction of volcanic activity.

[7] Both magma movement, changes in gas release and hydrothermal activity can lead to thermal emissivity changes at the volcano's surface.

Because of their high density they are capable of moving large objects such as loaded logging trucks, houses, bridges, and boulders.

Downstream of the deposition of their finest load, lahars can still pose a sheet flood hazard from the residual water.

The hazards derived from lahar activity can exist several years after a large explosive eruption.

[11] A system of Acoustic Flow Monitors (AFM) has also been emplaced on Mount Rainier to analyze ground tremors that could result in a lahar, providing an earlier warning.

[12] The eruption of Mount Nyiragongo on January 17, 2002, was predicted a week earlier by a local expert who had been studying the volcanoes for years.

The expert claimed that he had noticed small changes in the local relief and had monitored the eruption of a much smaller volcano two years earlier.

It can measure the changes in density, and afterwards, can retrieve a model to show magma movements and spatial scales that are occurring within a volcanic system.

Both the Japanese Meteorological Agency (JMA) and Kyoto University's Sakurajima Volcanological Observatory (SVO) monitors the volcano's activity.