The Santorini volcano in the South Aegean Volcanic Arc has a well documented history of eruption and seismic activity that is ongoing. This makes Santorini a prime subject of study for better understanding magma storage and transport at arc volcanoes. Although the shallow magmatic system (<6 km depth) has been well imaged, the deeper structure is still unknown. The Kolumbo seamount, located only 7 km NE of Santorini, also has a history of eruption and is more seismically active than Santorini.
Santorini and Kolumbo have very different eruptive styles: caldera-forming and effusive eruptions at Santorini, and hydrothermal degassing and smaller explosive eruptions at Kolumbo. While the lavas at Santorini and Kolumbo have significant compositional differences, it is debated whether the two nearby volcanoes are fed separately or interconnected from the mantle through the crust.
My current project uses tomographic inversion of P-wave Moho reflection (PmP) travel times to create 3-D models of velocity and interface depth up to ~30 km depth. The PROTEUS experiment provides an exceptionally dense and large aperture travel-time dataset collected from an amphibious array of ~150 seismometers and ~14,000 active marine sources.
Understanding the deeper plumbing systems of volcanoes can help us figure out how melt and gas is being transported to the surface, and ultimately get to the root of processes that lead to dangerous eruption.