Magmatic plumbing and dynamic evolution of the 2021 La Palma eruption

Carmen Fresno (), Simone Cesca, Andreas Klügel, Itahiza Domínguez Cerdeña, Eduardo A. Díaz-Suárez, Torsten Dahm, Laura García-Cañada, Stavros Meletlidis, Claus Milkereit, Carla Valenzuela-Malebrán, Rubén López-Díaz and Carmen López
Additional contact information
Carmen Fresno: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)
Simone Cesca: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Andreas Klügel: University of Bremen
Itahiza Domínguez Cerdeña: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)
Eduardo A. Díaz-Suárez: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)
Torsten Dahm: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Laura García-Cañada: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)
Stavros Meletlidis: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)
Claus Milkereit: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Carla Valenzuela-Malebrán: GFZ German Research Centre for Geosciences
Rubén López-Díaz: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)
Carmen López: Instituto Geográfico Nacional (IGN)

Nature Communications, 2023, vol. 14, issue 1, 1-11

Abstract: Abstract The 2021 volcanic eruption at La Palma, Canary Islands, was the island’s most voluminous historical eruption. Little is known about this volcano’s feeding system. During the eruption, seismicity was distributed in two clusters at ~10-14 km and ~33-39 km depth, separated by an aseismic zone. This gap coincides with the location of weak seismic swarms in 2017-2021 and where petrological data have implied pre-eruptive magma storage. Here we use seismological methods to understand the seismic response to magma transfer, with 8,488 hypocentral relocations resolving small-scale seismogenic structures, and 156 moment tensors identifying stress heterogeneities and principal axes flips. Results suggest a long-lasting preparatory stage with the progressive destabilisation of an intermediate, mushy reservoir, and a co-eruptive stage with seismicity controlled by the drainage and interplay of two localised reservoirs. Our study provides new insights into the plumbing system that will improve the monitoring of future eruptions in the island.

Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-023-35953-y Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:14:y:2023:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-023-35953-y

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-023-35953-y

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().