Tilt signals at Mount Melbourne, Antarctica: evidence of a shallow volcanic source

Mount Melbourne (74°21′ S, 164°43′ E) is a quiescent volcano located in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Tilt signals have been recorded on Mount Melbourne since early 1989 by a permanent shallow borehole tiltmeter network comprising five stations. An overall picture of tilt, air and permafrost t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Polar Research
Main Authors: Gambino, Salvatore, Aloisi, Marco, Falzone, Giuseppe, Ferro, Angelo
Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
Language:English
Published: Norwegian Polar Institute 2016
Subjects:
Online Access:https://polarresearch.net/index.php/polar/article/view/3275
https://doi.org/10.3402/polar.v35.28269
Description
Summary:Mount Melbourne (74°21′ S, 164°43′ E) is a quiescent volcano located in northern Victoria Land, Antarctica. Tilt signals have been recorded on Mount Melbourne since early 1989 by a permanent shallow borehole tiltmeter network comprising five stations. An overall picture of tilt, air and permafrost temperatures over 15 years of continuous recording data is reported. We focused our observations on long-term tilt trends that at the end of 1997 showed coherent changes at the three highest altitude stations, suggesting the presence of a ground deformation source whose effects are restricted to the summit area of Mount Melbourne. We inverted these data using a finite spherical body source, thereby obtaining a shallow deflation volume source located under the summit area. The ground deformation observed corroborates the hypothesis that the volcanic edifice of Mount Melbourne is active and should be monitored multidisciplinarily. Keywords: Tilt monitoring; volcanic dynamics; physics volcanology; ground deformation; Victoria Land.