This grant provides partial support for the costs of acquiring and monumenting two continuously recording global positioning satellite receivers (CGPS) for permanent deployment on Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii. This will expand an existing network of GPS receivers on Kilauea to monitor ongoing deformation associated with fault slip on the south flank of Kilauea's east rift zone and subsurface magmatic activity. The geodetic data would be used in conjunction with previously USGS supported GPS, seismic and tilt meter data to model the structural geology, magma chamber shape, size and volcanic plumbing dynamics beneath Kilauea; a volcano that continues to be active, has produced many recent large earthquakes, and due to evidence of rapid fault slip on the south flank, could produce a devastating tsunami in the future.
The expansion of the network on Kilauea follows eight years of prior space geodetic monitoring of volcanic deformation and seismic monitoring of the volcano. Recent seismic activity on the south flank has migrated along the east rift zone, away from the existing GPS network. Combined geodetic and seismic interpretation suggest dike injection and not magma chamber inflation as the source of this deformation and seismic energy. This expansion of the network will fill some obvious gaps in the geodetic data. Continuous GPS data should be able to document any deformation rate changes that might now be aliased with only discrete, campaign GPS data from this area of new activity and in any event will provide a valuable source of data to help us understand volcanic deformation and subsurface magmatic dynamics on an active hotspot volcano.
