Real-time measurements of CO2 and d13C in volcanic gases on Mt. Etna (Italy)

H.J. Hansjuerg Jost1, Andrea Luca Rizzo2, Marie-Anne Ancellin3, Antonio Caracausi4, Peter Stow5, Marcello Liotta6, Marco Liuzzo7, Mauro Martelli2 and Antonio Paonita4, (1)Thermo Fisher Scientific, Reinach, Switzerland, (2)National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology, sez. Palermo, Rome, Italy, (3)Ecole Nazionale Superieure de Geologie, Vandouvre Les Nancy Cedex, France, (4)Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Palermo, Italy, (5)Isomass, Calgary, AB, Canada, (6)Seconda Università degli Studi di Napoli, Dipartimento di Scienze e Tecnologie Ambientali, Biologiche e Farmaceutiche, Caserta, Italy, (7)Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Palermo, Palermo, Italy

Contact First Author: H.J. Hansjuerg Jost; hj.jost@thermofisher.com

Previously Published Material: We presented some of this material at the AGU 2014 Fall Meeting

Abstract ID#: 35937

 

English Abstract:
We present unprecedented data of real-time measurements of concentration and isotope (d13C) composition of CO2 in fumarolic and plume gases acquired in 2013 and 2014 at Mt. Etna volcano by a laser based Isotope Ratio Infrared Spectrometer (IRIS). We performed about 360 measurements/hour that allowed to extrapolate the d13C of volcanic CO2. The calculated d13C of Torre del Filosofo (TDF) fumaroles (2,900 m a.s.l.) result between -3.2±0.06‰ and -3.7±0.09‰, comparable to Isotope Ratio Mass Spectrometry (IRMS) measurements of discrete samples collected on the same date. Plume gases collected at more than 1 km from the craters show an extrapolated d13C from -2.2‰ to +1.4‰, partially overlapping crater fumaroles analyzed by IRMS. We also compared Laser with MultiGAS technique in order to evaluate possible relations between d13C and CO2/SO2 variations. This approach may represent an important step forward for volcanic monitoring.
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