Monitoring volcanic activity

Telegraph : Since the eruption two years ago of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland that left millions of travelers stranded across Europe, Andy Hooper at Delft University of Technology and colleagues have been on the alert for an eruption of a neighboring, much larger caldera, Katia. Although Katia has been erupting about every 60 years over the past millennium, it has not had a significant eruption since 1918. Nevertheless, there have been warning signs: Last July a flood of water burst from beneath Katia’s ice cap and washed away a bridge, and erratic movements of the volcano’s surface and bursts of high earthquake activity beneath Katia’s caldera have been measured. In addition to Katia, Hooper’s group has noticed a general period of increased global volcanic activity, exacerbated by climate change. The melting of ice reduces the pressure on the hot mantle material beneath Earth’s crust, leading to increased magma generation. Because major eruptions can be disastrous for humansâmdash;resulting in flooding, poisoning of agriculture, destruction of property, and grounding of aircraftâmdash;Hooper and coworkers have been developing more accurate models of volcanic plumbing systems, using GPS receivers, satellite-borne radar, and advanced algorithms.Also monitoring volcanic activity is a group of researchers at GeorgiaTech. To read more about their use of lidar to measure geodetic unrest, go to " Will she blow? Magma chamber inflation at Santorini caldera ” by Rachel Berkowitz at Physics Today Online.