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Trends in the aggregated rate of pre-eruptive volcano-tectonic seismicity at Kilauea volcano, Hawaii

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Abstract

Accelerating rates of volcano-tectonic (VT) earthquakes are commonly observed during volcanic unrest. Understanding the repeatability of their behaviour is essential to evaluating their potential to forecast eruptions. Quantitative eruption forecasts have focused on changes in precursors over intervals of weeks or less. Previous studies at basaltic volcanoes in frequent eruption, such as Kilauea in Hawaii and Piton de La Fournaise on Réunion, suggest that VT earthquake rates tend to follow a power-law acceleration with time about 2 weeks before eruption, but that this trend is often obscured by random fluctuations (or noise) in VT earthquake rate. These previous studies used a stacking procedure, in which precursory sequences for several eruptions are combined to enhance the signal from an underlying acceleration in VT earthquake rate. Such analyses assume a common precursory trend for all eruptions. This assumption is tested here for the 57 eruptions and intrusions recorded at Kilauea between 1959 and 1984. Applying rigorous criteria for selecting data (e.g. maximum depth; restricting magnitudes to be greater than the completeness magnitude, 2.1), we find a much less pronounced increase in the aggregate rate of earthquakes than previously reported. The stacked trend is also strongly controlled by the behaviour of one particular pre-eruptive sequence. In contrast, a robust signal emerges among stacked VT earthquake rates for a subset of the eruptions and intrusions. The results are consistent with two different precursory styles at Kilauea: (1) a small proportion of eruptions and intrusions that are preceded by accelerating rates of VT earthquakes over intervals of weeks to months and (2) a much larger number of eruptions that show no consistent increase until a few hours beforehand. The results also confirm the importance of testing precursory trends against data that have been filtered according to simple constraints on the spatial distribution and completeness magnitude of the VT earthquakes.

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Acknowledgments

This research was funded by the UK Natural Environment Research Council (AFB). During writing, AFB was funded by NERC project Ne/H02297x/1. We thank the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory for access to the Hawaiian earthquake catalogue, Ian Main for helpful discussions and Phil Dawson and an anonymous reviewer for their constructive comments.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. School of GeoSciences, Grant Institute, The University of Edinburgh, The King’s Buildings, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3JW, UK

    Andrew F. Bell

  2. Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Centre, Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London, WC1E 6BT, UK

    Christopher R. J. Kilburn

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  1. Andrew F. Bell
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  2. Christopher R. J. Kilburn
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Correspondence to Andrew F. Bell.

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Editorial responsibility: T. Ohminato

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Bell, A.F., Kilburn, C.R.J. Trends in the aggregated rate of pre-eruptive volcano-tectonic seismicity at Kilauea volcano, Hawaii. Bull Volcanol 75, 677 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00445-012-0677-y

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