The 1997–1998 Activity of Volcán de Colima,Western Mexico: Some Aspects of the Associated Seismic Activity

Volcán de Colima, the most active volcano in Mexico, had a climactic episode on 20 November, 1998. On this date, a dome formed on the small summit crater during the previous few days, collapsed generating block-and-ash flows. The event was preceded by almost twelve months of seismic activity, which continued afterwards for several more months. We analyzed the main seismic activity, which occurred from 20 March, 1998 to 31 March, 1999. The seismicity was dominated by volcano-tectonic earthquakes before the climax, and subsequently by hybrid and long-period earthquakes. We determined the frequency of events for the entire period, and located most of the volcano-tectonic events. To assess the possibility that these earthquakes were generated by the same source, they were tested for their similitude through cross correlation in the time domain. Six groups of similar events, or earthquake families, were generated. The members of these families appeared before the 20 November event, apparently ceasing afterwards. We examined the location of the families' events with respect to an existing gravity model in which an anomalous body of negative density contrast suggests the presence of the magma chamber. Most of the family events occur on top of the anomalous body, which suggests they were associated with the passage of magma through the feeding conduits of the volcano.     

Multicriteria seismic hazard assessment in Puerto Vallarta metropolitan area,Mexico

Natural Hazards - Puerto Vallarta, a medium-size tourist city, located in the Pacific Coast of Mexico, in a similar way as many other coastal cities, combines human activity with the potential...     

Volcanic hazard from San Martin Tuxtla Volcano,Tuxtla Volcanic Field,Veracruz, México: probability maps of ashfall deposition from possible future eruption

San Martin Tuxtla Volcano, the largest and highest edifice in the Tuxtla Volcanic Field, had explosive eruptions in 1664 and 1793. This volcano poses the highest hazard for the growing population centers surrounding it. The impacts and deposits of the 1793 eruption have been studied recently, and some of its characteristics, such as eruptive mass, grain-size distribution of the products and plume height, have been estimated. These data, together with daily data on wind velocities taken in the nearby city of Veracruz, have been used to conduct numerical modeling of ash distribution from an eruptive column comparable to that estimated during the 1793 event. Using wind velocities of randomly chosen days, we constructed probability maps of areas likely to receive, at least 1, 5, or 10 cm of ash. Our results indicate that an area about 1.3 × 10⁴ km² has a 12% probability of being covered by an ash fall more than 1 cm thick, if a mass of 10¹⁴ g was erupted and deposited from a 10-km-high eruptive plume. The results presented in this paper serve as a scientific basis to estimate volcano risk in the area from a possible eruption, consisting of one or several large explosive events, at San Martin Tuxtla volcano.