Towards remote monitoring of submarine volcanic activities(Fostering Joint International Research)

2019 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 15KK0177
• Research Category: Fund for the Promotion of Joint International Research (Fostering Joint International Research)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Research Field: Natural disaster / Disaster prevention science
• Research Institution: Kobe University (2016-2019); Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (2015)
• Principal Investigator: Sugioka Hiroko 神戸大学, 海洋底探査センター, 教授 (00359184)
• Project Period (FY): 2016 – 2019
• Keywords: 離島火山活動 / 海底火山活動 / リモートモニタリング / 水中音波 / 津波

Outline of Final Research Achievements

Towards remote monitoring of submarine volcanic activities, we have been successful in two following approaches; (1) Establishment of a platform for access to the CTBTO global network data: a virtual data center (vDEC) openly provides us with access to the CTBTO/IMS data, which can also act as a platform for the data processing useful to detect unknown hydroacoustic events; (2) Installation of an autonomous mid-column oceanic float hydrophones: MERMAID is a revolutionary submarine "drone" with hydrophone originally conceived by SImons and Nolet at Princeton University in 2002, which can detect the seismic data to transfer in real time via Iridium satellite. The 50 MERMAIDs were deployed to form a wide array in the South Pacific in 2018-2019 under an international collaboration project between French, U.S., China, and Japan to image, in detail, the massive mantle plume in the lower mantle regarding to the South Pacific Super Plume. They can observe with autonomous drifting for 6 years.

Free Research Field

地球物理学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

世界における活動的火山の三割は島嶼にあり、その殆どは環太平洋上の海底成層火山である。成層火山は形状上から津波発生ポテンシャルが高い。2018年のアナククラカトウ島火山で発生した津波がコンサート会場を襲い、多くの犠牲者を出しこたとは記憶に新しい。
火山性津波は地震性のそれとは異なり予測が極めて困難であり、災害防止には活動推移の常時監視に基づく事前予測が必須である。本研究では、海域火山活動の常時監視に有用な火山性水中音波観測の国際共有基盤を構築した。海洋観測技術力を有する海洋立国として、また防災先進国として、同じ環太平洋火山帯に在る諸国とリアルタイムで監視情報を共有することによる波及効果は大きい。