Surprise magma chamber found under Mediterranean Sea volcano near popular tourist destination - Fox News

A caller survey has uncovered a antecedently undetected magma enclosure beneath Kolumbo, an active submarine volcano successful the Mediterranean Sea adjacent Santorini, Greece.

A radical of planetary researchers utilized a caller imaging method for volcanoes that produces high-resolution images of seismic question properties, according to a Jan. 12 merchandise from the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

The survey was published successful the AGU diary Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, and the authors noted that the beingness of the enclosure "poses a superior hazard arsenic it could nutrient a highly explosive, tsunamigenic eruption successful the adjacent future." 

Researchers are recommending real-time hazard monitoring stations adjacent different progressive submarine volcanoes to amended estimations of erstwhile an eruption mightiness beryllium apt to occur.

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"The existent authorities of the reservoir indicates that an explosive eruption of precocious societal interaction successful the aboriginal is imaginable (though not imminent), frankincense we suggest establishing a imperishable observatory involving continuous earthquake monitoring… and seafloor geodesy," they wrote.

The indicated eruption would beryllium akin to but of a lesser magnitude to the caller Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai eruption, bringing a predicted tsunami and an eruptive file tens of kilometers high.

Maxar outer imagery shows the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano connected Dec. 24, 2021, earlier the eruption connected Jan. 14, 2022, successful the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai Islands, Tonga. (Maxar via Getty Images)

The survey was reportedly the archetypal to usage full-waveform inversion seismic imaging to look for changes successful magmatic enactment beneath the aboveground of submarine volcanoes on the Hellenic Arc, wherever the volcano is located.

Submarine volcanic enactment on a conception of the Kolumbo crater connected the seafloor, observed with SANTORY monitoring equipment. (SANTORY)

The exertion is applied to seismic profiles, oregon recordings of crushed motions on kilometers-long lines, and assesses differences successful question velocities that whitethorn bespeak subsurface anomalies. The radical recovered that full-waveform inversion exertion tin beryllium utilized successful volcanic regions to find imaginable locations, sizes and melt rates of mobile magma bodies. 

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The seismic profiles were constructed aft the scientists fired air-gun shots from aboard a probe vas cruising implicit the volcanic region, triggering seismic waves that were recorded by ocean-bottom seismometers located on the arc.

A importantly decreased velocity of seismic waves that question beneath the seafloor indicated the beingness of a mobile magma enclosure underneath Kolumbo, according to the study, with the characteristics of the question anomalies utilized to amended recognize the imaginable hazards the magma enclosure whitethorn present.

Images helped to place a ample magma enclosure that has been increasing astatine an mean complaint of astir 4 cardinal cubic meters per twelvemonth since Kolumbo’s past eruption successful 1650 C.E., astir 400 years ago.

A presumption of the municipality of Oia with its lime-washed houses and churches with bluish domes connected Santorini successful the Aegean Sea. (Marcos del Mazo / LightRocket via Getty Images / File)

The past clip Kolumbo erupted, it killed 70 radical successful Santorini. 

The study's pb writer noted that if the existent complaint of magma enclosure maturation continues, sometime successful the adjacent 150 years the volcano could scope the 2 cubic kilometers of melt measurement that was estimated to beryllium ejected during the 1650 C.E. eruption.

Although volcanic melt volumes tin beryllium estimated, determination is nary mode to archer for definite erstwhile Kolumbo, which lies astatine astir 500 meters deep, volition erupt next.

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"We request amended information connected what’s really beneath these volcanoes," Kajetan Chrapkiewicz, a geophysicist astatine Imperial College London and the pb writer of the study, said successful a statement. "Continuous monitoring systems would let america to person a amended estimation of erstwhile an eruption mightiness occur. With these systems, we would apt cognize astir an eruption a fewer days earlier it happens, and radical would beryllium capable to evacuate and enactment safe."

For the past fewer years, scientists person worked connected establishing SANTORY (Santorini's seafloor volcanic observatory) that volition beryllium capable to measurement progressions successful Kolumbo’s volcanic activity. It is inactive nether development.