Volcanoes excite geochemists because they provide a direct access to the deep Earth. However, along with providing exciting fresh samples from the interior of the Earth, active volcanoes present a constant danger of eruptive hazards to the locals living around them. According to Prof. Hirochika Sumino from Tokyo University, there are 111 active volcanoes alone in Japan, and 50 of them pose a danger to the local people living around them.

To mitigate volcanic disasters, we need to understand how volcanoes work as a whole. For this reason, Prof. Antonio Caracausi from INGV, Italy thinks that we need to look at the topic using a multidisciplinary approach, and we need to communicate the data within the research community to understand volcanoes from multiple perspectives.

That’s why Antonio Caracausi from Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia-Sezione di Palerm , Hirochika Sumino from University of Tokyo, Valentin Troll from Uppsala University, Ery C Hughes from Te Pū Ao GNS Science and  Lukáš Krmíček from Brno University of Technology decided to come together to hold a session on From traditional methods to new perspectives in exploring high resolution and pre/syn-eruptive analyses of recent hazardous eruptions and earthquakes during the Goldschmidt Conference this year for the first time. The conveners plan to hold the session during future Goldschmidt conferences in the coming years.

The session covered a wide range of topics on monitoring of volcanoes and active seismic zones across the globe. Volcanic gasses provide signatures from the deep interior of the volcano, which can be sampled and analysed to provide a near real-time data for what is going on inside.

One of the Keynote speakers, Kendra Lynn, presented her work on monitoring Kilauea, an active volcano on the Hawaiian volcanic group. She highlighted the importance of continuous monitoring and high resolution analysis by saying that the information shown on the talk is probably already outdated as the newest eruption provides new data as we speak.

Another speaker, Nanae Fukushima presented her work on monitoring the temporal variation of He isotope ratios by collecting samples every few months from the Kirishima volcanic group in southern Japan, for the last 10 years, until April this year.  These data provide a valuable resource to the future activity of the volcano, especially as we see the start of a new phase of eruptive activity since the 22nd of June this year.

One of the conveners, Hirochika Sumino, shared his research on the development of a portable mass spectrometer for the analysis of He isotope ratios of volcanic gasses on site. He said this type of technology can be used for real time monitoring of volcanic activity and may contribute to the early warning systems for volcanic activity.

Another speaker, Cinzia Federco presented data on the La Fossa volcano from Italy where the continuous monitoring indicated the system was evolving. Although, it did not cause an eruption yet, we can be prepared if it does erupt in the near future.

Two of the conveners for the session, Antonio Caracausi, and Hirochika Sumino agreed to share their views on why they decided to hold the session.

Question: Can you please share with us why you decided to hold this session and what the importance of the topic is?

• Answer: What we need right now is a multi disciplinary approach, combining geochemistry, petrology, petrography, volcanology, geophysics in order to understand more about the processes such as earthquake and volcanic eruptions. we are moving into a new era because now we have very high tech machines that can be used on the field. These give us the opportunity to improve the number of parameters that can be acquired in the field. But it’s also very important that the fundamental roots of these work are strong enough to push us towards the future. The idea to use a multidisciplinary approach or to use high frequency monitoring of these events are not new, but now we have access to new technology and are able to combine multiple types to data to better understand the systems.

Question: What is the final goal of such a multidisciplinary approach in monitoring volcanoes?

• Answer: We work to understand the the dynamics of magma in a volcanic plumbing system using geochemistry, petrology, petrography and volcanology. If there is a magma uprise, we want to understand whether it can generate or feed an eruption or not. It’s a dynamic system and we want to monitor the dynamic system.