Like Pamela, I am fascinated by volcanoes. So much so that my favorite moon, as I’m sure you’ve all heard me mention a billionty times, is Io. I’m still getting into this Titan business, and I’m definitely looking forward to Dragonfly. In the meantime, we have plenty of volcanoes here on Earth to be fascinated by. Some of them are a little scary, like the supervolcanoes. Yellowstone for one. I have a graphic I share that is basically, “Yellowstone is overdue for an eruption so just do the thing you were thinking of doing.” But Yellowstone isn’t the only scary supervolcano out there.

Some of you may recall that there was a deadly eruption of Whakaari in 2019. Whakaari, also known as White Island, is a volcano in the Bay of Plenty off New Zealand. It’s by far not the only volcano in New Zealand. There is also a supervolcano called Taupō. Twenty-five thousand years ago, this volcano erupted and sent enough ash and pumice into the air to cover the entire state of California in 2.8 meters of debris. It is the largest volcano eruption found to date.

The caldera of Taupō sits on New Zealand’s North Island, and while the odds of another supereruption are basically zero, there are smaller eruptions that have happened there, at least 28 since that supereruption. And an eruption somewhere between small and super is a possibility, and that has scientists studying the caldera. Last year, Taupō experienced an unusual level of seismic activity, causing concern that an eruption could be imminent. This possibility is not a certainty. Volcanoes often just have a low level of seismic activity as magma moves around underground which doesn’t necessarily indicate a build-up in pressure that could lead to an eruption.

So when a seismic swarm occurred in 2019 near a 7000-year-old lava dome in the caldera, scientists involved in a research project called ECLIPSE, or Eruption or Catastrophe: Learning to Implement Preparedness for future Supervolcano Eruptions, installed eight new seismometers around the caldera. There are plans to install another five. Wonderfully, all these installations are being done with the cooperation and involvement of the local communities and landowners, allowing the people who would be most impacted by an eruption to participate in the research.

With all the new sensors in place, data can now be collected on even more earthquakes, including those under magnitude 2.2, which was the previous threshold for the older seismometers. And the network will allow scientists to directly image the magma system using geophysical data. That imaging has never been done before since the magma chamber is below Lake Taupō. The research team even hopes to create a 3-D image of the crust, and that’s just plain cool.

This is an exciting project, and we’ll keep you updated as the team releases its results.

More Information

Implications of a Supervolcano’s Seismicity (Eos)