An Acoustic Array At Axial Seamount for Geodesy and Autonomous Vehicle Support

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Studies of all kinds of volcanoes are important to understand how volcanoes work and improve the ability to forecast eruptions. Axial Seamount is a submarine volcano that lies 300 miles off the coast of Oregon that has been studied for nearly four decades. The volcano rises about 3000 ft above the surrounding seafloor and its summit is characterized by a 5-mile by 2-mile caldera that is 300 ft deep. The volcano erupted in 1998, 2011 and 2015, with the last eruption captured by a cabled observatory that is part of the Ocean Observatories Initiative. The observatory includes a seismic network that detects earthquakes and seafloor pressure sensors that show that the caldera floor rises slowly between eruptions as magma moves into the volcano and sinks rapidly during eruptions when magma is released. Some of the up and down movement of the seafloor occurs by slip on faults that underlie the caldera and some occurs because the volcano inflates and deflates like a balloon. Which mechanism is most important and whether this changes with time as the volcano nears an eruption is unknown. This project will install a 10-year 4-station network of acoustic transponders that will monitor the time for sound waves to travel between stations to measure changes in the horizontal distance between stations. One station will be connected to the cabled observatory so that measurements will be obtained in real time. These measurements will constrain the relative roles of fault motions and magma chamber inflation and deflation. The acoustic network will also support experiments to learn how to control submarine robots with acoustic commands and compare a calibrated pressure sensor built by a commercial company with two academic calibrated pressure instruments that are already on the observatory. The project will train a graduate student and at least one undergraduate intern from an underrepresented group. In the future, the techniques developed for this project can be applied in other settings such as subduction zones and unstable submarine slopes. Efforts to advance our understanding of volcanoes and eruption forecasting are best served by studying volcanism in a wide variety of settings. Indeed, mid-ocean ridge volcanoes may represent some of the most tractable systems to understand because they have shallow magmatic systems, relatively uniform petrology, and known crustal thickness. Axial Seamount is one of the most extensively studied sites on the global network of mid-ocean ridges. Three eruptions have been observed in 1998, 2011 and 2015, with the most recent recorded by the seismic network and bottom pressure and tilt instruments on the Ocean Observatories Initiative (OOI) Regional Cabled Array (RCA). There is a near continuous 20-year record from calibrated seafloor pressure sensors recording cycles of inflation and rapid syn-eruptive deflation that are consistent with the hypothesis that the eruptions are inflation predictable. However, the vertical geodetic observations cannot fully discriminate between broadly distributed inflation and uplift of the caldera that is accommodated by movement on the buried outward-dipping faults that underlie the east and west walls of the Axial caldera. This project will install a 10-year 4-station acoustic network at Axial Seamount that will range between each pair of transponders and include a pressure gauge, temperature sensor and velocimeter on each transponder. One station will be connected to the OOI-RCA enabling real time data acquisition and control of the transponder array. Understanding the dynamics of calderas and the role of ring faults in accommodating strain and modulating eruptions is an important topic in volcano research. The horizontal strain measurements enabled by the acoustic network will, in conjunction with ongoing vertical geodesy from seafloor pressure observations and repeat AUV mapping, determine the relative roles of magma chamber inflation and deflation and motion on the buried outward dipping faults that lie beneath the east and west caldera walls. These observations will be used to determine whether the outward dipping faults are locked early in the reinflation cycle when earthquake rates are low or whether they slip aseismically. The seismic catalog can then be used to infer whether the level of coupling varies during the eruptive cycle. The horizontal ranging will also contribute data to support more detailed models of magma chamber inflation than have been obtained to date and will constrain the width of dikes that propagate across the acoustic baselines. A secondary objective is to provide an acoustic network that can support efforts to demonstrate and optimize remote communication and navigation of AUVs, an essential step toward the deployment of remotely operated AUVs that can capture future eruptions.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.