Precursory characteristics of the seismicity before the 6 August 2012 eruption of Tongariro volcano, North Island, New Zealand

This seismicity alerted GNS Science and other organisations to the unrest of Tongariro, and the Volcanic Alert Level and Aviation Colour Code were raised to publicise this. GNS Science also increased its monitoring of Tongariro, and discovered that the magmatic gas concentrations had increased compared to previous measurements in May 2012. However, the seismicity did not show any accelerating trend that suggested an immediate eruption threat, indicating the difficulty of predicting small eruptions in Tongariro and similar volcanoes.