Given that there are about 300 active volcanoes on Earth, the challenge is how to track them all in order to send early warnings before eruptions. Measuring volcanic gas emissions is also challenging.
Now researchers have developed specially adapted drones to collect data from an active volcano in Papua New Guinea.
Drones can help local communities track nearby volcanoes and predict future eruptions. Their measurements can also tell us more about the most inaccessible, highly active volcanoes on the planet and how volcanoes contribute to the global carbon cycle.
Volcano Manam is located on an island just 10 kilometers wide, which is located off the northeastern coast of Papua New Guinea. The island is home to over 9,000 people and Manam Motu, as the locals call it, is one of the most active volcanoes on the planet. In 2004, the violent eruption of Manama forced the entire island to evacuate to the mainland and destroyed houses and buildings.
Scientists have several ways to predict when a volcano will begin to erupt. They can track earthquakes in the area, detect tremors that almost always precede eruptions, and follow bulges in the sloping walls of a volcano as magma builds up beneath them.
When clear skies permit, satellites can also quickly detect and measure volcanic emissions of gases such as sulfur dioxide (SO2). Changes in the emissions of these gases can signal volcanic activity.
“Manam has not been studied in detail, but we could see from satellite data that it produces strong emissions,” said volcanologist Emma Liu of University College London, who led the research team for geoscientists and aerospace engineers.
“We [also] wanted to quantify the carbon emissions from this very large source of carbon dioxide emissions,” added geochemist Tobias Fisher of the University of New Mexico.
Manama's steep slopes make it dangerous for humans to sample, while drones can fly directly into billowing plumes, helping the research team to more accurately measure volcanic gas emissions.
Aerial view of the active vent of Manam Volcano, Papua New Guinea, showing molten magma at the surface. (Emma Liu / ABOVE).
'Our new approach, that is, long-range and high-altitude [unmanned] operations that allow on-site measurements, is currently the only possible way that we can characterize gas chemistry on steep, dangerous and highly active volcanoes such as Manam ', the researchers concluded in their article.
The study was published in the journal Science Advances.
Credits: Photo: Manam Volcano in Papua New Guinea as viewed from space June 16, 2010 (Jesse Allen / NASA).
