Remote detection and location of explosive volcanism in Alaska with the EarthScope Transportable Array

Abstract

The current deployment of the EarthScope Transportable Array (TA) in Alaska affords an unprecedented opportunity to study explosive volcanic eruptions using a relatively dense regional seismoacoustic network. Infrasound monitoring has demonstrated utility for the remote (>250 km range) detection and characterization of volcanic explosions, but previous studies have used relatively sparse regional or global networks. Seventy explosive events from the locally unmonitored Bogoslof volcano (2016–2017) provide a unique validation data set to examine the ability of the TA and other regional networks to detect and locate remote explosive volcanic eruptions in Alaska. With a simple envelope-based reverse time migration (RTM) technique, we are able to detect and locate more than 72% of the 61 Bogoslof infrasound events detected by the Alaska Volcano Observatory. Notably, RTM using only sparse regional infrasound arrays produces results similar to when incorporating the extensive single-sensor TA network, likely due to favorable signal-to-noise ratios, seasonal propagation conditions, and source-receiver geometries. Our implementation also detects and locates explosive eruptions from Cleveland volcano, Alaska, and Bezymianny volcano, Kamchatka, as well as infrasound from nonvolcanic events such as earthquakes. We characterize the success of the RTM algorithm and associated parameter choices using receiver operating characteristic curves, event detection rates, and location accuracy. Our methods are useful for explosive volcanic and nonvolcanic event detection and localization using real-time data and for scanning continuous waveform data archives.