Joint inversions of ground deformation, extrusion flux and gas emissions
using physics-based models for the Mount St. Helens 2004-2008 eruption
Abstract
With the increasing quantity and quality of data collected at volcanoes,
there is growing potential to incorporate all the data into analyses of
the magmatic system. Physics-based models provide a natural and
meaningful way to bring together real-time monitoring data and
laboratory analyses of eruption products, at the same time improving our
understanding of volcanic processes. We develop a framework for joint
inversions of diverse time series data using the physics-based model for
dome-forming eruptions from \citeA{Wong2019}. Applying
this method to the 2004-2008 eruption at Mount St. Helens, we estimate
essential system parameters including chamber geometry, pressure,
volatile content and material properties, from extruded volume, ground
deformation and carbon dioxide emissions time series. The model
parameter space is first sampled using the neighborhood search
algorithm, then the resulting ensemble of models is resampled to
generate posterior probability density functions on the parameters
\cite{Sambridge1999_Search, Sambridge1999_Appraise}.
We find models that fit all three datasets well. Posterior PDFs suggest
an elongate chamber with aspect ratio less than 0.55, located at
$9.0-17.2$ km depth. Since the model calculates pressure change during
the eruption, we can constrain chamber volume to $64-256$ km$^3$.
Volume loss in the chamber is $20-66$ million m$^3$. At the top
of the chamber, total (dissolved and exsolved) water contents are
$4.99-6.44$ wt\% and total carbon dioxide contents are
$1560-3891$ ppm, giving a porosity of 5.3-16.6\%
depending on the conduit length. Compared to previous inversions using a
steady-state conduit model, we obtain a lower magma permeability scale,
radius and friction coefficient.