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Published October 10, 1998 | Published
Journal Article Open

Earthquakes, volcanoes, and rectified diffusion

Abstract

Rectified diffusion is a mechanism by which a strain wave can rapidly pump volatiles into a bubble and therefore increase the pressure in a closed system. The dynamic strain of either distant regional tectonic earthquakes or local volcanic tremor can be translated to static strain inside a magma chamber via this process. We formulate a theory appropriate to the conditions of a magma chamber and calculate the increased pressure using realistic physical parameters. For a basaltic system initially at 130 MPa pressure, the excess pressure from rectified diffusion is between 0.4 and 4 MPa for a regional M≥8 earthquake. The pressure from rectified diffusion is often significantly above the static stress caused by deformation for documented cases of triggered eruptions and thus presents a more viable mechanism for triggering. Prolonged tremor can have a similar effect since the total pressure added increases linearly with the duration of the excitation.

Additional Information

© 1998 The American Geophysical Union. Paper number 98JB02130. Received October 10, 1997; Revised June 9, 1998; Accepted June 17, 1998. Comments by M. Rutherford and J. Lowenstern greatly improved an early version of this manuscript. Reviews by T. Koyaguchi, S. Kaneshima, and an anonymous referee clarified several points. This paper is based on work supported under a National Science Foundation Graduate Fellowship and is contribution 5809 of the Division of Geological and Planetary Sciences, California Institute of Technology.

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