RAPID InSAR response to volcanic eruption in Iceland

University Of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI

Investigators

Abstract

The volcanic eruption at the Icelandic volcano Eyjafjallajökull, hereafter shortened to ?Eyja? began on April 14, 2010. The fallout disrupted human activity across Europe. The researchers propose to continue monitoring the activity at both Eyja and Katla volcanoes, focusing on interferometric analysis of synthetic aperture radar images (InSAR) acquired by the TerraSAR-X, Envisat, and ALOS satellite missions. The short time intervals between paired eruptions and the need to task the satellites in advance requires the RAPID award. The researchers will also redeploy three broadband seismometers that are already operating in Iceland to locations within 15 km of the center of the volcanic edfice at Eyja. The RAPID funding will help to capture the seismological signals while the eruption continues. To guide the research, we propose two hypotheses: (I) Deformation at Eyja slows from rapid inflation during the pre-eruptive time interval to negligible rates when the eruption began on 20 March 2010 as the magma flux into the deep sill was balanced by flux out of it. (II) Seismo-volcanic activity is mechanically coupled between the two volcanoes, Eyja and Katla. To test these hypotheses, they envision a research activity with three components: measuring, modeling, and interpreting. The rich data observational set at Eyja will be used to test two hypotheses about the processes operating within an active volcano. The proposed research will lead to a model that can explain the timing and location of most of the crustal deformation observed by InSAR there. The model should also reproduce the essential aspects of the other observations, including earthquake locations and GPS measurements. By combining the measuring (with GIPhT) and modeling (with FEM), the interpreting component will help scientists at NVC and IMO in their ongoing efforts to monitor volcanic activity at Eyja. The new information from this study will be directly relevant to understanding the time-dependent volcanic hazard posed by volcanoes lying beneath heavily used air traffic corridors.