The first 3D image constructed of the system below the Sierra Negra volcano -- the largest and most active on the Galápagos Islands -- could help scientists more accurately anticipate earthquakes and eruptions and, as a result, minimize the often catastrophic events they can cause.
Before this investigation, which has been published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, little was known about the volcanoes on the Galápagos, but the inner-workings of the Sierra Nevada are infinitely clearer now.
A team of researchers buried 15 seismometers -- devices that measure motions in the ground -- around the Sierra Negra to keep track of the velocity and direction of sound waves generated by earthquakes as they moved beneath the volcano. Using this data they were able to create a 3D image based on how the waves varied as they passed through different types of materials with different temperatures.
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"With a better understanding of what's beneath the volcanoes, we'll now be able to more accurately measure underground activity," Cynthia Ebinger, a professor at the University of Rochester and a lead author in the study, said in a statement.
It has become clear that the Sierra Negra and its fellow volcanoes appear to have a lot in common with those found on the Hawaiian Islands. The underground systems of both groups seem to have formed for similar reasons and there is evidence that a large chamber full of crystal-mush magma -- cooled magma with crystallized minerals -- exists near both of them.
A significant difference, however, is that the volcanoes on the Hawaiian Islands are dormant and those on the Galápagos are not. This is due to the fact that the former are no longer connected to a source of magma.
Ebinger hopes that these findings, which were published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth, will be able to be applied not only to the Sierra Negra, but to other island volcano systems as well.