In recent years, temporary arrays have been deployed to capture the volcano’s plumbing in action as it pipes magma to the ever-present lava lake. Seismic stations located on and around Mount Erebus have been listening to the sprightly crag since the 1980s. In a recent paper published in Seismological Research Letters, Chenyu Li, currently a postdoc at Earth Observatory of Singapore, and her coauthors show how to differentiate between the two similar signals, while also pinning certain increases in seismicity to stress changes imparted by distant earthquakes. In particular, the icy shell hosts numerous processes detectable by seismic sensors, including shallow shivers within the ice when it breaks-icequakes.īecause Mount Erebus perpetually erupts, differentiating between magma churning through the volcano’s underground tunnels versus seismic shudders encased wholly within the overlying ice can prove problematic. But they’re not only tracking volcanic activity, but also the ice that blankets the island. McMurdo Station and New Zealand Scott Base, scientists can carefully monitor the restive peak. Because of Mount Erebus’s near-constant state of eruption and proximity to the U.S. Mount Erebus towers more than 12,000 feet above an icy white landscape on Ross Island, cradling within its summit crater a persistent, active lava lake. Erebus’s namesakes include a vessel that participated in a 19th century Antarctic expedition led by Sir James Clark Ross, and Earth’s southernmost active volcano, dubbed after Sir James’s sturdy ship. Icequake or lava lake? Insights from Mount ErebusĪccording to Greek lore, a place of darkness called Erebus lies between Earth and Hades, the ancient mythological underworld.
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