Volcano Monitoring: MAUNA LOA (GG130)

Geophysics (Deformation via GPS and InSAR, Seismicity, etc. )

Mauna Loa deformation patterns

and sources

2003-2008

Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) – derived deformation:Each color cycle represents ½ of a wavelength’s worth of deformation, and for thisparticular radar system, the wavelength is 5.6 cm

Mauna Loa Seismic Monitoring

Mauna Loa Seismic Activity for the past year

Mauna Loa Earthquake Density for the past 50 years.

0 2.6 7 18 48 126 324

Mauna Loa shallow (<5km) Earthquake Activity for the past 50 years.

Mauna Loa shallow (<5km) Earthquake Activity for the past 50 years: More shallow earthquakes recently, or better equipment?

Ear

thqu

ake

mag

nitu

de

Mauna Loa shallow (<5km) Earthquake Activity for the past 50 years.

Cum

ulat

ive

num

ber

of e

arth

quak

es

To normalize for differences in earthquake detection thresholds, we can count earthquakes scaled by their relative energy release.

Earthquake energy scales by 10^(3M/2) (where M is the magnitude).

So, a magnitude 4.0 earthquake has the equivalent energy of 10^(3/2) ≈ 32 magnitude 3.0 earthquakes

Mauna Loa shallow (<5km) Earthquake Activity for the past 50 years.

Cum

ulat

ive

m 3

.0 e

quiv

alen

t ear

thqu

akes

Mauna Loa shallow (<5km) Earthquake Activity for the past 50 years.

Cum

ulat

ive

m 3

.0 e

quiv

alen

t ear

thqu

akes