Researchers from the California Institute of Technology have developed a fiber-sensing technology that can predict volcanic eruptions up to 30 minutes in advance, which will safeguard the public and also provide a helpful tool to study volcanic activity.
According to a news release by Caltech, Zhongwen Zhan, a professor of geophysics and director of the Caltech Seismological Laboratory, along with his team, tested the technology at Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula, one of the country's most volcanically active and densely populated areas.
The team collaborated with Icelandic scientists and the telecommunication company Ljósleidarinn to deploy the technology, called distributed acoustic sensing, on the peninsula for a year to gain more insight into volcanic activity and develop a lava eruption early-warning system.
Since November 2023, the Reykjanes Peninsula has had eight lava eruptions, several of which endangered communities. Researchers noted that the peninsula is projected to become increasingly active over the next year, highlighting the need for the DAS technology.
"This is the most active volcanic system in Iceland," Zhan said in the news release. "In addition to the need to provide advance warnings before an eruption, the project is scientifically interesting because we saw more magma intrusion events there than we originally thought — ones that don't come up to the surface.
"There is a lot more work to do, and all volcanoes are different, but DAS provides us a new capability to see things we couldn't before. Our project is also a great example of the power of international collaboration."
Research on the technology was published in the journal Science.
Jiaxuan Li, the study's first author and a former postdoctoral scholar at Caltech, said the team set up the system within 10 days following a "substantial magma intrusion event." A month later, the first eruption using the DAS system was recorded, a major accomplishment for the team.
According to researchers, "DAS works by pointing lasers into unused underground fiber-optic cables (like those that provide internet)." They then measure the phase change — the difference in timing or position of two or more waves or vibrations, at a given frequency, which offers researchers insight into the passing waves. The 100-kilometer (62-mile) fiber cable is equivalent to thousands of regular seismic sensors.
DAS can also accurately measure underground movement from volcanic activity as minuscule as "millimeters in real time," which can pick up much more detail than satellite or GPS imagery.
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Definitely 🥰 Using data from DAS, the team was able to create an early warning system that alerts the public between 30 minutes and several hours before a volcano erupts on the peninsula.
With glaciers rapidly melting in Iceland and reducing the weight they exert on the Earth's crust, scientists are concerned about an uptick in volcanic eruptions since it could trigger the release of pressure in underground magma chambers. Large wildfires have also become more frequent because of rising global temperatures and droughts, leading scientists to develop a machine- learning model to better predict fires.
As natural disasters become more intense and frequent because of the consequences of the shifting climate, prediction technologies will be crucial in protecting lives and communities.
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