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The MVO Rockfall Location System 24 Years On: Reimplementation, and Re-Analysis of Pyroclastic Flow Trajectories

Description: 

Montserrat, West Indies. On March 20th, 2000, heavy rainfall induced 4 hours of progressively intensifying lahars and pyroclastic flows, reaching the ocean in most directions. Most of Montserrat’s population lived close to the Belham Valley, which was greatly impacted. Having recently re-joined MVO after a 3.5 year absence, this event gave new impetus to an idea that I had originally had in July 1996 from observing the bar graphs of the RSAM system: could we devise a real-time system for the location of pyroclastic flows, based on the distribution of amplitudes across the seismic network? Within 24 hours, I had a near-real-time “rockfall location system” running, featuring a crude shrinking grid search, and sending alarms by SMS. By databasing the estimated trajectories, “heatmaps” of rockfall activity could be plotted between pairs of dates/times, to reveal which parts of the dome were growing/collapsing, giving us a sort of seismic-X-ray vision to peer through the persistent cloud that shrouded the lava dome. However, given the fast-paced nature of a volcanic crisis, a systematic evaluation of performance did not occur and, unfortunately, this software and the corresponding database was lost in June 2003, when I departed MVO. We have re-created this system as an ObsPy-based package, and hundreds of event trajectories are being recomputed. In this presentation, we will assess system performance, and see what lessons can be learned about the Montserrat eruption.

Session: Detecting, Characterizing and Monitoring Mass Movements [Poster Session]

Type: Poster

Date: 5/2/2024

Presentation Time: 08:00 AM (local time)

Presenting Author: Glenn

Student Presenter: No

Invited Presentation: 

Authors