Rapid characterization of large volcanic eruptions: measuring the
impulse of the Hunga Tonga explosion from teleseismic waves
Abstract
Most of the largest volcanic activity in the world occurs in remote
places as deep oceans or poorly monitored oceanic islands. Thus, our
capacity of monitoring volcanoes is limited to remote sensing and global
geophysical observations. However, the rapid estimation of volcanic
eruption parameters is needed for scientific understanding of the
eruptive process and rapid hazard estimation. We present a method to
rapidly identify large volcanic explosions, based on analysis of seismic
data. With this methodology, we promptly detect the January 15, 2022
Hunga Tonga eruption. We then analyze the seismic waves generate by the
volcanic explosion and estimate important first-order parameters of the
eruption. We further relate the parameters with the volcanic explosivity
index (VEI). Our estimate of VEI~6, indicate how the
Hunga Tonga eruption is among the largest volcanic activity ever
recorded with modern geophysical instrumentation, and can provide new
insights about the physics of large volcanoes.