Characterization of Source and Wave Propagation Effects of Volcano-seismic Events and Tremor Using the Amplitude Source Location Method

Abstract:

We propose application of the amplitude source location (ASL) method to characterize source and wave propagation effects of volcano-seismic events and tremor observed at different volcanoes. We used this method to estimate the source location and source amplitude from high-frequency (5-10 Hz) seismic amplitudes under the assumption of isotropic S-wave radiation. We estimated the cumulative source amplitude (Is) as the offset value of the time-integrated envelope of the vertical seismogram corrected for geometrical spreading and medium attenuation in the 5-10 Hz band. We studied these parameters of tremor signals associated with eruptions and explosion events at Tungurahua volcano, Ecuador; long-period (LP) events at Cotopaxi volcano, Ecuador; and LP events at Nevado del Ruiz volcano, Colombia. We identified two types of eruption tremor at Tungurahua; noise-like inharmonic waveforms and harmonic oscillatory signals. We found that Is increased linearly with increasing source amplitude for explosion events and LP events, and that Is increased exponentially with increasing source amplitude for inharmonic eruption tremor signals. The source characteristics of harmonic eruption tremor signals differed from those of inharmonic tremor signals. The Is values we estimated for inharmonic eruption tremor were consistent with previous estimates of volumes of tephra fallout. The linear relationship between the source amplitude and Is for LP events can be explained by the wave propagation effects in the diffusion model for multiple scattering assuming a diffusion coefficient of 10⁵ m²/s and an intrinsic Q factor of around 50. The resultant mean free path is approximately 100 m. Our results suggest that Cotopaxi and Nevado del Ruiz volcanoes have similar highly scattering and attenuating structures. Our approach provides a systematic way to compare the size of volcano-seismic signals observed at different volcanoes. The scaling relations among source parameters that we identified are useful to our understanding of the source processes associated with eruptions and wave propagation characteristics beneath volcanoes.