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Date of Award
2017
Document Type
Campus Access Master's Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Science in Geology (MS)
Administrative Home Department
Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences
Advisor 1
Gregory P. Waite
Committee Member 1
Carol MacLennan
Committee Member 2
Thomas Oommen
Abstract
Fuego, a stratovolcano located in Guatemala, has had historic eruptions ranging from strombolian to sub-plinian. Since 1999, it has been persistently active, typically having multiple small strombolian to weak vulcanian eruptions daily. With the aid of webcam surveillance, the activity for the period of March 2014 to October 2015 was investigated in detail to identify patterns in eruptive behavior. A cycle of activity, which has paroxysmal explosion on a monthly average, is a shorter and modified version of previously observed volcanic behavior. In addition to investigating the monthly cycles, the patterns of daily explosive eruptions were also investigated. Never before have statistical models been applied to the eruption dynamics at Fuego to better understand internal process. For each day, the time interval between successive explosions was used to fit different probabilistic methods. A moving-average test and correlation test assessed the stationarity and time-independence of each data set. Results show a best fit for the log-logistic distribution suggesting that there are competing processes driving eruptions at Fuego, and that these processes are constant at least on a time scale of days.
Recommended Citation
Castro-Escobar, Monica, "Patterns in eruptions at Fuego from statistical analysis of video surveillance", Campus Access Master's Thesis, Michigan Technological University, 2017.