Hazards and Monitoring of Volcanic Activity 1: Geological and Historic Approaches

The impact of natural disasters has become an important and ever-growing preoccupation for modern societies. Volcanic eruptions are particularly feared due to their devastating local, regional or global effects. Relevant scientific expertise that aims to evaluate the hazards of volcanic activity and monitor and predict eruptions has progressively developed since the start of the 20th century. The further development of fundamental knowledge and technological advances over this period have allowed scientific capabilities in this field to evolve. Hazards and Monitoring of Volcanic Activity groups a number of available techniques and approaches to render them easily accessible to teachers, researchers and students. This volume is dedicated to geological and historical approaches. The assessment of hazards and monitoring strategies is based primarily on knowledge of a volcano’s past behavior or that of similar volcanoes. The book presents the different types of volcanic hazards and various approaches to their mapping before providing a history of monitoring techniques.

Table of Contents:
Contents Foreword . Claude JAUPart Preface xiii Jean-François LÉNAT List of Abbreviations . Chapter 1 Understanding the Geological History of Volcanoes: An Essential Prerequisite to Their Monitoring 1 Patrick BACHÈLERY 1.1 Introduction 1 1.1.1 Historical volcanology at the crossroads of various disciplines: the example of the Samalas eruption in 1257 3 1.1.2 Hazard characterization, geological analysis and future eruptive scenarios 6 1.1.3 Mount St Helens, May 18, 1980 6 1.1.4 Lessons learned from the May 18, 1980 eruption of Mount St Helens 9 1.1.5 The diversity of eruptive regimes 12 1.2 Relative and absolute dating and the importance of timescales: chronology of eruptions 14 ix xv 1.3 Frequency of eruptions, eruptive cycles and future eruption scenarios 19 1.4 Historical activity through texts, iconography and archeology 24 1.5 The work of the pioneers 26 1.5.1 Alfred Lacroix 26 1.5.2 Jean-Baptiste Bory de Saint-Vincent 28 1.5.3 William Hamilton 33 1.6 The contribution of old maps 34 1.7 Volcanic archeology 36 1.8 Eruptive dynamics, types of eruptions, structural evolution: the use of volcanic “archives” through geological field interpretation 38 1.9 Structural framework and evolution 43 1.10 The use of distant archives 45 1.10.1 The record of large eruptions in marine and lake sediments 45 1.10.2 The recording of large eruptions in ice cores 50 1.11 From the knowledge of a volcano’s past to the identification of an operational monitoring strategy and the assessment of volcanic risks 53 1.12 Conclusion 56 1.13 References 57 Chapter 2 Volcanic Hazards 75 Raphaël PARIS, Philipson BANI, Oryaëlle CHEVREL, Franck DONNADIEU, Julia EYCHENNE, Pierre-Jean GAUTHIER, Mathieu GOUHIER, David JESSOP, Karim KELFOUN, Séverine MOUNE, Olivier ROCHE and Jean-Claude THOURET 2.1 Introduction 75 2.2 Eruptive hazards 77 2.2.1 Earthquakes of magmatic and volcano-tectonic origin 77 2.2.2 Outgassing phenomena 78 2.2.3 Lava flows 87 2.2.4 Tephra 98 2.2.5 Atmospheric pressure waves 106 2.2.6 Pyroclastic density currents 106 2.3 Indirect volcanic hazards 114 2.3.1 Lahars and associated flows 114 2.3.2 Prevention of lahars 123 2.3.3 Landslides and debris avalanches 125 vii 2.3.4 Tsunamis 132 2.4 References 138 Chapter 3 Assessment, Delineation of Hazard Zones and Modeling of Volcanic Hazards 151 Jean-Claude THOURET and Sylvain CHARBONNIER 3.1 Introduction 151 3.2 Terminology 152 3.3 Objectives of volcanic hazard assessment and delineation of hazard zones 153 3.4 The main volcanic hazards and their effects 153 3.4.1 Temporal and spatial scales of hazards 158 3.4.2 Existing hazard classifications and their criteria 158 3.5 Multi-hazard delineation methods for volcanoes 159 3.5.1 Specificity and complexity of volcanic hazard delineation 160 3.5.2 Principles of hazard delineation 161 3.5.3 The graphic expression of delineation of hazard zones: the hazard maps 162 3.5.4 Pioneering tests: Nevado del Ruiz (1985) and Mount Pelée (1985–1995) 165 3.5.5 Development of mapping techniques in the 1990s to 2000 171 3.6 New approaches to modeling and quantitative analysis 173 3.6.1 Evolution of delineation methods: DTM, GIS and digital codes 173 3.6.2 The statistical, probabilistic and evolutionary representation of delineation of hazard zones 176 3.6.3 Large-scale delineation of hazard zones 177 3.7 Conclusion 179 3.8 References 180 Chapter 4 History of Volcanic Monitoring and Development of Methods 185 Jean-François LÉNAT 4.1 Qualitative observation 185 4.1.1 Maps and charts 186 4.1.2 Quantitative data and insights into volcanic mechanisms 189 4.2. The development of instrumental surveillance: late 19th–early 20th centuries to 1970s 190 4.2.1 Volcanic observatories 190 4.2.2 The modern period: impact of digital and space 204 4.3 Acknowledgments 216 4.4 References 216 List of Authors 229 Index 231