The Reykjanes Peninsula, located on the southwestern tip of Iceland, is not only one of the country's most populated areas but also one of its most volcanically active. In 2024, researchers deployed new sensing technology developed at Caltech to study the underground movement of magma and its eruption as lava on the surface.
Using data from this technology, known as distributed acoustic sensing (DAS), scientists created a method capable of providing up to 30 minutes of warning before an eruption. Their findings demonstrate that DAS can be a powerful tool for both monitoring volcanic activity and issuing early warnings to protect the public.
The study was conducted in the lab of Zhongwen Zhan, professor of geophysics and director of the Caltech Seismological Laboratory. A paper detailing the research was published in Science on April 24.
Since November 2023, the Reykjanes Peninsula has experienced eight lava eruptions, some threatening nearby towns. Although Iceland is naturally prone to volcanic activity, scientists believe that this specific region may be entering a prolonged phase of increased volcanic events.
To investigate, Zhan’s team partnered with Icelandic researchers and the telecommunications company Ljósleidarinn to deploy DAS sensors across the peninsula. Their goal was to better understand volcanic behavior and to build an effective early warning system.
"The deployment was remarkably fast," said Jiaxuan Li, the study’s lead author and a former Caltech postdoctoral scholar, now an assistant professor at the University of Houston. "We set up our system along a 100-kilometer fiber-optic cable just 10 days after a major magma intrusion event in November 2023. About a month later, we successfully recorded our first eruption. This was a major international collaboration with real-world significance."
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DAS technology works by sending lasers through unused underground fiber-optic cables, like those used for internet service. As vibrations from earthquakes, volcanic rumblings, or even traffic pass through the cable, they cause slight phase changes in the laser light. By measuring these changes, researchers can detect and map seismic waves with the precision of thousands of traditional seismic sensors along the cable's length.
Volcanic activity causes underground deformations as magma pushes upward from shallow reservoirs, stretching and compressing the ground. DAS can detect these subtle shifts with millimeter-level accuracy in real time, offering much higher resolution than GPS or satellite-based methods.
The research highlights the potential of DAS technology to revolutionize how volcanic eruptions are monitored and predicted, offering communities critical time to prepare and respond.