Kriswati, Estu; Meilano, Irwan; Iguchi, Masato; Abidin, H.Z.; Author(S) Surono
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An evaluation of the possibility of tectonic triggering of the Title Sinabung eruption Kriswati, Estu; Meilano, Irwan; Iguchi, Masato; Abidin, H.Z.; Author(s) Surono Citation Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (2018) Issue Date 2018-05-01 URL http://hdl.handle.net/2433/241768 © 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access Right article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Type Journal Article Textversion publisher Kyoto University VOLGEO-06374; No of Pages 9 Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research xxx (2018) xxx–xxx Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/jvolgeores An evaluation of the possibility of tectonic triggering of the Sinabung eruption Estu Kriswati a,⁎, Irwan Meilano b, Masato Iguchi c, H.Z. Abidin b, Surono a a Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, Geological Agency, Indonesia b Geodesy Research Group, Faculty of Earth Science and Technology, Institute of Technology Bandung, Indonesia c Sakurajima Volcano Research Center, Kyoto University, Japan article info abstract Article history: The aim of this work is to determine if tectonic seismicity may have had a role in triggering volcanic activity at Received 1 August 2016 Sinabung volcano and to evaluate the relative importance of different seismic parameters that could contribute Received in revised form 26 March 2018 to triggering an eruption. We focus on the potential role of static strain, including the timing and magnitude of Accepted 30 April 2018 changes in volumetric strain and the direction of principal strain to investigate the relation between tectonic Available online xxxx strain changes and variations in volcanic activity at Sinabung volcano. Sinabung erupted first in August and September 2010, and then following three years of quiescence, a seismic Keywords: Strain swarm at the volcano began on 4 July 2013, two days after the Bireun earthquake (Mw 6.1), which was located Sinabung 252 km from the volcano. Subsequent to these events a new series of eruptions started on 15 September 2013 Volcano deformation and continues through today. Ground deformation, as measured with GPS, showed significant changes at Seismicity Sinabung during the 4 months following the Bireun earthquake and before the September 15 eruption, reaching Volcano-tectonics interaction 8–11 mm of horizontal displacement. To evaluate the possibility of seismic triggering of activity at Sinabung, we used Global CMT solutions of large tec- tonic earthquakes within 1000 km of the volcano to estimate strain changes and compared these changes to the timing of volcanic activity and seismicity and to ground deformation. We find no unequivocal relationship be- tween changes in the volumetric strain from the regional tectonic earthquakes and timing of volcanic activity at Sinabung. However, we find that the orientation of the extensional component of the strain produced by the Bireun earthquake is perpendicular to the strike of a mapped fault the crosses the volcano. We suggest that be- cause the Sinabung magmatic system was already pressurized, this small change in extensional strain across this fault zone could have initiated the magma ascent and the consequent seismic swarm that led to the 2013 eruption. © 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). 1. Introduction increased on 1 October 2009 immediately after the Southern Sumatran earthquake on the same day (Kriswati et al., 2012). The Sumatra region is characterized by a large number of earth- Sinabung volcano, North Sumatra, began to erupt in August 2010 quakes at the boundaries between the subducting Indo-Australia and entered into a renewed phase of activity in September 2013. At plate, the Sumatra fault zone and several active volcanoes that are the time of this writing (mid 2017), the eruption still continues, gener- lined up along this fault zone. It has been suggested that some volcanoes ating pyroclastic flows and lahars. Sinabung is located only 25 km away in Sumatra have shown increases in volcanic activity possibly related to from the Sumatran fault zone and b300 km from the subduction trench tectonic earthquakes. For example, an increase in volcanic seismicity at (Fig. 1). Because of proximity to these major tectonic structures, we Kaba volcano was recorded following the M 7.8 Bengkulu earthquake on want to understand if strain changes related to earthquakes along 4 June 2000 (http://vsi.esdm.go.id/index.php/gunungapi/data-dasar- these structures have played any role in triggering volcanic seismicity gunungapi/501-g-kaba). The eruption of Talang volcano in West Suma- or eruptions at Sinabung. tra on 12 April 2005 occurred only 2 days after the Mentawai earth- Research on the interaction between volcanism and tectonics has quake (Purbawinata, 2005). Seismicity and fumarolic activity at Talang been the subject of increased attention in recent years. Two principal models of stress change have been proposed to explain increases in vol- canic activity following tectonic earthquakes: static stress change trig- ⁎ Corresponding author at: Centre for Volcanology and Geological Hazard Mitigation, Geological Agency, Indonesia. gering (King et al., 1994; Stein, 1999) and dynamic stress change E-mail address: [email protected] (E. Kriswati). triggering (Hill and Prejean, 2007; Fuchs, 2014), due to processes such https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2018.04.031 0377-0273/© 2018 Published by Elsevier B.V. This is an open access article under the CC BY-NC-ND license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/). Please cite this article as: Kriswati, E., et al., An evaluation of the possibility of tectonic triggering of the Sinabung eruption, J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res. (2018), https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2018.04.031 2 E. Kriswati et al. / Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research xxx (2018) xxx–xxx Fig. 1. Seismicity and tectonic setting around Sinabung volcano. Triangle shows the location of Sinabung volcano. The solid line shows the location of the subduction trench and the dashed line is Sumatran fault. (Left) Epicenters of earthquakes with magnitude of 5.0–8.6 in the period 2010–2013. (Right) Epicenters of 21 earthquakes of Mw ≥ 6 that occurred within 1000 km of Sinabung volcano during the period of 2010–2013, and black circle is the 7/2/2013 Bireun earthquake (map source: earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes). as advective overpressure and rectified diffusion (Manga and Brodsky, “unclamping” of conduits above the magma chamber (c.f., Bursik, 2006), relaxation of a magma body (Hill et al., 1995), sinking crystal 2009; Walter and Amelung, 2006), or magma ascent could be aided plumes (Hill et al., 2002; Manga and Brodsky, 2006), hydraulic surge by fluctuations between compression and extension during passing of (Fournier, 1999), and fatigue and subcritical crack growth (Dobran, seismic waves (Walter and Amelung, 2007). 2001). Hill et al. (2002) proposed that earthquake–volcano interactions The tectonic triggering of eruptions is an intriguing possibility and due to static stress changes are controlled by pressure changes in a has been suggested in oral presentations by some local workers for magma body. These pressure changes are thought to be induced by the Sinabung eruption. However, the global evidence in favor of erup- the isotropic, compressional component of the stress field in the vicinity tion triggering is extremely limited (e.g., Manga and Brodsky, 2006 of the volcano. Hill et al. (2002) studied a series of proposed earthquake and White and Harlow, 1993) and the data in this paper bears this out triggered volcanic eruptions (e.g., the 1707 eruption at Mt. Fuji, Japan with respect to candidate earthquakes in the region. Triggering of volca- after an earthquake of M 8.2, and the 1991 eruption of Mt. Pinatubo in nic eruption by tectonic earthquakes depends on parameters such as the Philippines following a M 7.7 earthquake in 1990). They concluded focal mechanism, magnitude, epicentral distance, and the initial state that increased compressional stress in the crust surrounding a magma of the magmatic system prior to the earthquake. The aim of this work chamber, close to its critical state, may squeeze magma upward (as pre- is to determine if tectonic seismicity may have had a role in triggering viously suggested by Nakamura, 1975 and Nostro et al., 1998); on the volcanic activity at Sinabung and to infer the relative importance of other hand, a decrease in compressional stress can promote additional the different parameters in triggering an eruption there. We focus our melting, the formation of bubbles as volatiles exsolve and the attention on calculating volumetric strain, determining the spatial Table 1 List of tectonic earthquakes of Mw ≥ 6 within 1000 km of Sinabung volcano. These 21 events are located in Indonesia, unless noted otherwise. No. Location Date Time (UTC) Mw Latitude (°) Longitude (°) Depth (km) Mechanism Distance from Sinabung (km) 1 Kepulauan Mentawai 3/5/2010 16:07:00 6.8 −3.762 100.991 26.0 Thrust 823 2 Northern Sumatra 4/6/2010 22:15:01 7.8 2.383 97.048 31.0 Thrust 173 3 Southern Sumatra 5/5/2010 16:29:03 6.5 −4.054 101.096 27.0 Thrust 858 4 Northern Sumatra 5/9/2010/ 5:59:41 7.2 3.748 96.018 38.0 Thrust 271 5 Nicobar Islands, India 6/12/2010 19:26:50 7.5 7.881 91.936 35.0 Strike slip 886 Eruption at Sinabung 8/29/2010