Can tides influence volcanic eruptions?

Abstract:

The possibility that the Moon-Sun gravitational force can affect terrestrial volcanoes and trigger eruptions is a controversial issue that has been proposed since ancient times, and that has been widely debated during the last century. The controversy arises mainly from two reasons. First, the days of initiation of eruptions are not well known for many volcanoes, and thus a robust statistical comparison with tidal cycles cannot be performed for many of them. Second, the stress changes induced by tides in the upper crust are very small (10-3 MPa) compared to the tensile strength of rocks (~ 10-1-10 MPa), and hence the mechanism by which tidal stresses might trigger eruptions is unclear. In this study, we address these issues for persistently degassing volcanoes, as they erupt frequently and thus the initiation time of a significant number of eruptions (>30) is well known in several cases (9). In particular, we find that the occurrence of eruptions within ±2 days from neap tides (first and third quarter moon) is lower than 34% (e.g., 29% for Etna, Italy; 28% for Merapi, Indonesia), which is the value expected if eruptions occur randomly with no external influence. To understand this preference for erupting far away from neap tides, we have developed a new lumped-parameter model that accounts for the deformation of magma reservoirs, a partially open conduit, and a gas layer where bubbles accumulate beneath volcanic craters before being released. We demonstrate that this system reservoir-conduit-gas layer acts as an amplifier of the tidal stresses, such that, when a volcano approaches to a critical state, the gas overpressure beneath the crater can reach up to several MPa more during a spring tide (full and new moon) than during a neap tide. This amplification mechanism can explain why active volcanoes are sensitive to the moon cycles.