Explosion Energy of the 2004 Eruption of the Asama Volcano, Central Japan: Inference From Ionospheric Disturbances Observed by a Dense GPS Array

Ionospheric Total Electron Content (TEC) can be easily measured as the phase differences of the L1 and L2 band carrier waves from Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. Ionospheric disturbances measured as TEC changes have been contributing to not only solar-terrestrial studies but also solid earth geophysics, e.g. constraining the source process of the 2004 Sumatra Earthquake (Heki et al., JGR, 2006). Here I present a new application of GPS-TEC, i.e. estimation of the explosion energy of a volcanic eruption (Heki, GRL, 2006). The Asama Volcano, Central Japan, started eruptive activity at 11:02 UT on September 1, 2004, with a vulcanian explosion associated with strong airwaves. The Japanese dense GPS array GEONET recorded ionospheric disturbances as N-shaped changes in TEC approximately 12 minutes after the eruption. The disturbance had a period of 1.25 minutes and propagated as fast as about 1.1 km/s, suggesting its origin as the acoustic wave generated by the explosion. By comparing the disturbance amplitudes with those by a surface mine blast with a known energy (Calais et al., GJI, 1998), the overall Asama explosion energy is inferred to be equivalent to 1.2e14 Joule, about one third of the energy reported for the 1938 eruption (Minakami, BERI, 1942). Energy of the airwave can be estimated following Johnson (JVGR, 2003), assuming that the disturbance is a part of the spherical wave propagated from the volcano. We thus obtained the value 9.0e6 Joule, a typical value of airwave energies associated with volcanic eruptions. This new technique would complement past methods based on observations of mass deficits, near-field measurements of airwaves, etc, and may contribute to mitigation of volcanic hazards.