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Mauna Loa, the world’s largest active volcano, shows clear warning signs ahead of eruption in 2022

People look at lava from Mauna Loa volcano near Hilo, Hawaii, Thursday, Dec. 1, 2022. Credit: AP Photo/Gregory Bull, File

Scientists can’t know exactly when a volcano will erupt, but they can spot telltale signs.

It happened two years ago at the world’s largest active volcano. About two months before Mauna Loa spewed a river of glowing orange lava, geologists detected small earthquakes and other signs nearby that alerted Hawaii Island residents.

Now, studies of the volcano’s lava have confirmed the timeline of when the lava below was moving.

“Volcanoes are difficult because you can’t directly see what’s going on inside, so you have to look for other signs,” said Eric Klemetti Gonzalez, a volcano expert at Denison University.

Kendra Lin, a research geologist at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and co-author of a new study published in Nature Communications, says the uplift of the Earth’s crust and increased seismic activity near volcanoes is caused by a rise in the Earth’s crust from below. He said it was the result of magma rising and filling the chambers beneath the volcano.

Once the pressure was high enough, the magma broke through the brittle surface rock and turned into lava, starting an eruption in late November 2022. Researchers then collected samples of volcanic rock for analysis.

The chemical composition of certain crystals within the lava indicates that large amounts of lava moved from about 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) to 3 miles (5 kilometers) to 1 mile (2 kilometers) below the summit about 70 days before the eruption. It was showing. The research found that: This matched the timelines geologists had observed in other signs.

Mauna Loa, the world's largest active volcano, shows clear warning signs ahead of eruption in 2022

Spectators watch lava from the Mauna Loa eruption flow down a mountain on Tuesday, Nov. 29, 2022, near Hilo, Hawaii. Credit: AP Photo/Marco Garcia, File

Mauna Loa last erupted in 1984. Most of the U.S. volcanoes that scientists believe are active are located in Hawaii, Alaska, and the West Coast.

Approximately 585 volcanoes are believed to be active around the world.

Ben Andrews, who heads the Global Volcanoes Program at the Smithsonian Institution and was not involved in the study, said scientists can’t predict eruptions, but they can “predict” them.

Andrews compared volcano forecasts to weather forecasts and described the “probability” of an event occurring. Also, better data on the past behavior of specific volcanoes could help researchers fine-tune predictions of future activity, experts say.

“It is possible that we will find similar patterns in the future, and we expect conditions for eruptions to occur with a higher probability,” Klemetti Gonzalez said.

More information: Kendra J. Lynn et al., Inducing the 2022 Mauna Loa eruption, Nature Communications (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41467-024-52881-7

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Source: World’s largest active volcano Mauna Loa shows clear warning signs ahead of eruption in 2022 (November 12, 2024) https://phys.org/news/2024-11-world-largest-volcano Retrieved November 12, 2024 from -mauna-loa.html

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