New observations of displacement steps associated with volcano seismic long-period events, constrained by step table experiments

摘要

Long-period (LP) volcano seismic events often precede volcanic eruptions and are viewed with considerable interest in hazard assessment. They are usually thought to be associated with resonating fluid-filled conduits although alternative models involving material failure have recently been proposed. Through recent field experiments, we uncovered a step-like displacement component associated with some LP events, outside the spectral range of the typically narrow-band analysis for this kind of event. Bespoke laboratory experiments with step tables show that steps of the order of a few micrometers can be extracted from seismograms, where long-period noise is estimated and removed with moving median filters. Using these constraints, we observe step-like ground deformation in LP recordings near the summits of Turrialba and Etna Volcanoes. This represents a previously unobserved static component in the source time history of LP events, with implications for the underlying source process.