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Gravity Survey at the Ceboruco Volcano Area (Nayarit, Mexico): a 3-D Model of the Subsurface Structure

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Abstract

Ceboruco volcano (−104°30′, 21°7′, 2150 m asl) is located in the western portion of the trans-Mexican volcanic belt and NW extreme of the Tepic-Zacoalco rift zone, a structure composed of a series of NNW-trending en echelon fault-bounded basins constituting the NE boundary between the north-American plate and the Jalisco block (JB). Ceboruco experimented a Plinian eruption about 1000 years ago and several more of different styles afterward; the last one in 1870 CE. This volcano poses a significant risk because of the relatively large population in its surroundings. Ceboruco has been studied by mostly from the point of view of petrology, geochemistry, and physical volcanology; however, no geophysical studies about its internal structure have been published. In this paper, we present the results of a gravimetric survey carried out in its surroundings and a model of the internal structure obtained from inversion of the data. The Ceboruco area is characterized by a negative Bouguer anomaly spanning the volcanic structure. The probable causative body modeled with the data of the survey is located about 1 km below mean sea level and has a volume of 163 km3. We propose that this body is the magma chamber from where the products of its eruptions in the last 1000 years ensued.

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Acknowledgements

This work was partially funded by project P24 of CeMIEGeo in charge of Dr. F.J. Núñez-Cornú. We are grateful to Quiriart J. Gutiererez and Juan I. Pinzón for their collaboration during the fieldwork, to Alejandro García Serrano (FI-UNAM) for providing and directing the measurements with the Differential GPS, to David Escobedo (FI-UNAM) for his advice in the operation of the gravity meter and the use of FI-UNAM’s gravity meter to compare our measurements, and to L. Godinez for her help in the elaboration of the figures. J F–C is grateful to Dr. Christian Escudero for his interest and advice in the course of this work. JME thanks CONACYT for its support through sabbatical Grant 261558. We are very grateful to two anonymous reviewers for their constructive criticism, which helped us to improve this work.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Centro de Sismología y Volcanología de Occidente -SisVOc-Centro Universitario de la Costa, Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Universidad 203, 48280, Puerto Vallarta, México

    Jhonattan Fernandez-Cordoba

  2. Departamento de Ciencias Exactas, Centro Universitario de la Costa, Universidad de Guadalajara, Av. Universidad 203, 48280, Puerto Vallarta, México

    Araceli Zamora-Camacho

  3. Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Av. Universidad 3000, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510, Ciudad de México, México

    Juan Manuel Espindola

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  1. Jhonattan Fernandez-Cordoba
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  2. Araceli Zamora-Camacho
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  3. Juan Manuel Espindola
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Correspondence to Jhonattan Fernandez-Cordoba.

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Fernandez-Cordoba, J., Zamora-Camacho, A. & Espindola, J.M. Gravity Survey at the Ceboruco Volcano Area (Nayarit, Mexico): a 3-D Model of the Subsurface Structure. Pure Appl. Geophys. 174, 3905–3918 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00024-017-1600-4

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