Increasing Summit Degassing at the Stromboli Volcano and Relationships with Volcanic Activity (2016–2018)

Abstract

The last increased volcanic activity of the Stromboli volcano, from 2016 to 2018, was characterized by increases in the number and frequency of crater explosions and by episodes of lava overflow. The volcanic activity was monitored utilizing CO2 soil fluxes acquired from the Stromboli summit area (STR02 station). To better understand the behavior of the shallow plumbing system of the Stromboli volcano in the period of 2016–2018, we utilized a large data set spanning from 2000 to 2018. The data in this last period confirm a long growing trend of CO2 summit degassing, already observed in the years since 2005 (reaching 23,000 g·m−2·d−1). Moreover, within this increasing trend, episodes of sudden and sharp increases in the degassing rate, up to 24.2 g·m−2·d−2 were recorded, which are correlated with the observed paroxysmal activity (increased summit explosions and overflow).

Keywords

• Stromboli volcano
• geochemical monitoring
• summit soil
• CO₂ degassing
• Strombolian activity