Multiparameter Monitoring Techniques for Reducing Volcanic Risk from Cuicocha Crater Lake, Ecuador
Abstract
Cuicocha, a crater-lake volcano located 50 km north of Quito, had an explosive caldera eruption 3000 yBP (Hillebrandt, 1989) that affected an important area of the northern part of the Ecuadorian Interandean valley. The first seismic station was installed at Cuicocha in 1988. Since 2010, this volcano showed an increase of their seismic activity, with several earthquakes felt by inhabitants near the volcano, as well as a subtle increase of the CO2 gas emission. After that, the Instituto Geofisico initiated a program for improving the monitoring capacity combined with a new geological field work dataset. Three broad band stations were installed, two of them outside the caldera rim and the other one, CUIC station, is located just over the Yerovi island dome. Two continuous GPS stations NetRS were installed, one 5 km east of Cuicocha and the other inside the caldera. On Yerovi dome it was deployed a permanent CO2 spectrometer. The Instituto Geofisico carries out a periodically EDM and gas measurements on the volcano in order to correlate geodesic data set and degasing CO2 flux. At the same time, we are re-evaluating the eruptive chronology and the eruptive dynamisms of the Cuicocha caldera eruptions, as well as the petrology of the paroxysmal eruptive products. Preliminary results confirm the 3000 yBP eruption age and our current work will be able to constraint the dynamisms, frequency and size of this paroxysmal eruption of Cuicocha. Finally, we plan to use all this information to re-edit the hazard map (von Hillebrandt and Hall, 1988) and guide local authorities and population to reduce the volcanic risk.
- Publication:
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AGU Spring Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- May 2013
- Bibcode:
- 2013AGUSM.V44A..08R
- Keywords:
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- 8419 VOLCANOLOGY / Volcano monitoring;
- 8488 VOLCANOLOGY / Volcanic hazards and risks;
- 8440 VOLCANOLOGY / Calderas