Periodicity of Kı̄lauea’s Dike Intrusions

Abstract:

Magmatic intrusions commonly occur in the rift zones of Kı̄lauea Volcano. Individual dike intrusions observed by geodetic methods are usually 5 to 10 km long, and can occur repeatedly in the same region. Five such intrusions in Kı̄lauea’s East Rift Zone, with inferred locations downrift of the bend where the NNW trending upper ERZ turns to the ENE trending ERZ, have occurred since the start of the ongoing ERZ eruption in 1983. The intrusions occur on one of two segments that correlate with seismic segments (Wright and Klein, USGS PP1806, 2014): Makaopuhi (1993 and 2007) and Nāpau (1983, 1997, and 2011). During each intrusion, the amount of dike opening was between 2 and 3 meters. Intrusions into the UERZ tend to be much smaller (~10 cm of dike opening) and occur more frequently. The time between ERZ intrusions for same-segment pairs are: 14.07 (1983-1997), 14.09 (1997-2011), and 13.95 (1993-2007) years, with the Nāpau segment becoming active about 3.5 years after the Makaopuhi segment in each case. The amount of modeled dike opening during each of these events roughly corresponds to the amount of seaward south flank motion and deep rift opening accumulated in the time between events, as was noted by Owen et al. (GRL, 2000) for the 1983 and 1997 intrusions. The recurrence interval of ~14 years appears to be unaffected by the magma surge of 2003-2007 (Poland et al., Nature, 2012), suggesting that flank motion, rather than magma supply, could be a controlling factor in the periodicity of intrusions. The long duration of the seismic catalog and the coincidence of repeated dike intrusions with the seismic segments suggest that on the timescale of decades, Kı̄lauea’s East Rift Zone segments are persistent rather than ephemeral features related to single intrusion events.