Volcanic ‘trombone music’ may alert to eruption

Oct. 20 () –

A group of geophysicists have developed a modeling tool that uses sound waves of volcanic activity to help understand and forecast volcanic behavior.

“The movement of magma in some volcanoes produces sound similar to musical instruments“, He says it’s a statement study first author Leighton Watson, a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Canterbury (UC).

“While humans can hear some of the sound waves, the vast majority of the energy is below the lower frequency range of the human ear. By implementing specialized microphones, we can listen to volcanoes and use their sounds to understand their behavior.”

AS WHEN A TROMBONE IS RETRACTED

“Explosions at the top of the magma column excite sound waves, which reflect off the top of the crater, like inside a trombone, but on a much larger scale. As the magma rises in the crater, the distance between the top of the magma column and the top of the crater decreases, which causes the pitch of the sound to rise, like when a trombone is retracted.

“By listening to the pitch change, we can track the movement of the magma inside the crater. This has the potential to provide several hours of warning before an eruption, which could make a significant difference to those who live near or visit active volcanoes.”

Dr. Watson and his colleagues studied these volcanic melodies on Mount Etna in Sicily, Italy, an active volcano where eruptions occur frequently, spewing lava more than 1 km above the summit. The work also builds on Dr. Watson’s previous studies of Villarrica in Chile and Cotopaxi in Ecuador.. The next stage of the research is to adapt the model to make it relevant to the New Zealand context.

Dr. Leighton Watson’s paper, “Infrasound Glide Reflects a Rising Magma Column on Mount Etna (Italy),” was recently published in ScientificReports.