2016/06/09 by Kevin Jourde, Dominique Gibert, Jourde, Kevin +7
Physics and Astronomy · #Astrophysics and Cosmic Phenomena #FOS: Physical sciences #Geophysics (physics.geo-ph) #High Energy Physics - Experiment (hep-ex) #Particle Detector Development and Performance #Particle physics theoretical and experimental studies
paper · pdf · doi:10.48550/arxiv.1606.03003
openalex publication_date 2016/06/09 · openalex created_date 2022/10/03 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/28
Imaging geological structures through cosmic muon radiography is a newly\ndeveloped technique particularly interesting in volcanology. Here we show that\nmuon radiography may be efficient to detect and characterize mass movements in\nshallow hydrothermal systems of low-energy active volcanoes like the La\nSoufri `ere lava dome. We present an experiment conducted on this volcano\nduring the Summer 2014 and bring evidence that huge density changes occurred\nin three domains of the lava dome. Depending on their position and on the\nmedium porosity the volumes of these domains vary from 1 \× 106 ;\n\m3 to 7 \× 106 ; \m3. However, the mass changes\nremain quite constant, two of them being negative (\Δ m \≈ -0.6\n\× 109 ; \kg) and a third one being positive (\Δ m \≈\n+2 \× 109 ; \kg). We attribute the negative mass changes to the\nformation of steam in shallow hydrothermal reservoir previously partly filled\nwith liquid water. This coincides with the apparition of new fumaroles on top\nof the volcano. The positive mass change is synchronized with the negative mass\nchanges indicating that liquid water probably flowed from the two reservoirs\ninvaded by steam toward the third reservoir.\n