Time series analysis of high temperature fumaroles monitored on the island of Vulcano (Aeolian Archipelago, Italy)

The exhalation activity at the La Fossa cone (Vulcano Island, Aeolian Archipelago, Italy) has been ongoing for more than 1 century. Many of the monitored geochemical and geophysical parameters have showed transient variations of energy release. The time-series analyses of fumarole temperatures presented in this paper enabled the sequence of observations to be defined and information from different monitoring stations to be integrated. The motion of fluids feeding the fumaroles of the La Fossa cone is driven by the thermal and kinetic energies that balance the seismic and volcanic forces active in the region, and the temperatures of the fumaroles reflect the local response of the hydrothermal system to these forces. During a 14-year period of observation, from 1998 to 2012, fumarole temperatures showed various trends but also cyclic variations characterized by sharp increases. The repetition of these variations during periods with different trends indicates that no physical variation occurred from the hydrothermal source to the surface during the analyzed period, and after each periodic geochemical crisis the previous thermal conditions were restored. Although the continuous monitoring of high-temperature fumaroles was limited to only a few sites, the observed trends characterized the most important fumaroles in the area of Vulcano Island. An evaluation of thermal-energy release based on these spatially discrete measurements would be a speculative exercise in thermodynamics, but the analyses of the recorded data represent a step forward in interpreting the signals from ongoing volcanic activity and in assessing the seismic risk.