Vertical ground movements in the Campi Flegrei caldera as a chaotic dynamic phenomenon

Abstract The ground level in the Campi Flegrei caldera has never been stationary in the last 2,000 years. Historical data, and a nearly continuous tide-gauge record 20 years long, show that uplift and sinking have taken place on a variety of different time scales. In addition, the Campi Flegrei volcanic system appears to be sensitive to weak external forces such as tidal forces. We infer from these elements that the Campi Flegrei system is far from thermodynamic equilibrium, and suggest that its dynamics may be chaotic. We analyze the short-term variations of the ground level, and find that they can be described in a low-dimensional phase space. The dynamics of the Campi Flegrei system seems to have been phase-locked with tidal forces in the period following the 1970–1972 climax, and to have undergone a transition to chaos in some moment that preceded the presently continuing sinking phase.

[1]  Y. Pomeau,et al.  Intermittent transition to turbulence in dissipative dynamical systems , 1980 .

[2]  J. Rao,et al.  Dimension Analysis of Climatic Data , 1989 .

[3]  B. Chouet,et al.  Applications of nonlinear dynamics to the history of seismic tremor at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii , 1988 .

[4]  F. Innocenti,et al.  The phlegraean fields: Magma evolution within a shallow chamber , 1983 .

[5]  The route to chaos in thermal convection at infinite Prandtl number: 1. Some trajectories and bifurcations , 1989 .

[6]  M. Johnston,et al.  Earth Tides and the Triggering of Eruptions from Mt Stromboli, Italy , 1972, Nature.

[7]  M. Rosi,et al.  The phlegraean fields: Structural evolution, volcanic history and eruptive mechanisms , 1983 .

[8]  B. Mandelbrot.  Fractal Geometry of Nature , 1984 .

[9]  G. Nicolis,et al.  Is there a climatic attractor? , 1984, Nature.

[10]  M. Kot,et al.  Nearly one dimensional dynamics in an epidemic. , 1985, Journal of theoretical biology.

[11]  D. L. Turcotte,et al.  Fractal mapping of digitized images: Application to the topography of Arizona and comparisons with synthetic images , 1989 .

[12]  P. Grassberger.  Do climatic attractors exist? , 1986, Nature.

[13]  E. Pezzo,et al.  The time evolution of vertical ground movements in the Campei Flegrei caldera: a kinetic phenomenological model , 1989 .

[14]  Robert Shaw,et al.  The Dripping Faucet As A Model Chaotic System , 1984 .

[15]  D. Yuen,et al.  Steady state double-diffusive convection in magma chambers heated from below. , 1987 .

[16]  M. Grimaldi,et al.  Ground Deformations in the Phlegraean Fields Volcanic Area, Italy+ , 1983 .

[17]  D. Ruelle.  Diagnosis of dynamical systems with fluctuating parameters , 1987, Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. A. Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

[18]  A. Palumbo.  Lunar tidal triggering in volcanic areas , 1985 .

[19]  S. Malone,et al.  Magma supply, magma discharge and readjustment of the feeding system of mount St. Helens during 1980 , 1985 .

[20]  A. Wolf,et al.  One-Dimensional Dynamics in a Multicomponent Chemical Reaction , 1982 .

[21]  H. Stanley,et al.  Multifractal phenomena in physics and chemistry , 1988, Nature.

[22]  S. A. Nelson.  The possible role of thermal feedback in the eruption of siliceous magmas , 1981 .

[23]  L. Lirer,et al.  On the volcanological evolution of Campi Flegrei , 1987 .

[24]  Herbert R. Shaw,et al.  Rheology of Basalt in the Melting Range , 1969 .

[25]  Angioletta Coradini,et al.  Modeling of surface deformation in volcanic areas: The 1970–1972 and 1982–1984 crises of Campi Flegrei, Italy , 1987 .

[26]  Bruce D. Marsh,et al.  The convective liquidus in a solidifying magma chamber: a fluid dynamic investigation , 1989, Nature.

[27]  Deterministic Chaos, Geomagnetic Reversals, and the Spherical Pendulum , 1989 .

[28]  D. Turcotte.  Fractals in geology and geophysics , 2009, Encyclopedia of Complexity and Systems Science.

[29]  P. Grassberger,et al.  Measuring the Strangeness of Strange Attractors , 1983 .

[30]  Giovanna Berrino,et al.  Ground deformation and gravity changes accompanying the 1982 Pozzuoli uplift , 1984 .

[31]  George Sugihara,et al.  Nonlinear forecasting as a way of distinguishing chaos from measurement error in time series , 1990, Nature.

[32]  H. R. Shaw.  Mathematical Attractor Theory and Plutonic-Volcanic Episodicity , 1988 .

[33]  B. Marsh.  On Convective Style and Vigor in Sheet-like Magma Chambers , 1989 .

[34]  D. A. Usikov,et al.  Nonlinear Physics: From the Pendulum to Turbulence and Chaos , 1988 .

[35]  G. M. Brown,et al.  Layered Igneous Rocks , 1967 .

[36]  C. Jaupart,et al.  Nucleation, crystal growth and the thermal regime of cooling magmas , 1984 .

[37]  William M. Schaffer,et al.  Stretching and Folding in Lynx Fur Returns: Evidence for a Strange Attractor in Nature? , 1984, The American Naturalist.

[38]  F. Innocenti,et al.  A model of the Phlegraean Fields magma chamber in the last 10,500 years , 1984 .

[39]  Y. Pomeau,et al.  Intermittency in Rayleigh-Bénard convection , 1980 .

[40]  L. Lirer,et al.  The 1538 Monte Nuovo eruption (Campi Flegrei, Italy) , 1987 .

[41]  M. Dragoni,et al.  Displacement and stress fields produced by a centre of dilation and by a pressure source in a viscoelastic half-space: application to the study of ground deformation and seismic activity at Campi Flegrei, Italy , 1986 .

[42]  D. Dzurisin.  Influence of fortnightly Earth tides at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii , 1980 .

[43]  R. M. Noyes,et al.  Crystallization and Layering of the Skaergaard Intrusion , 1979 .

[44]  R. W. Griffiths,et al.  Compositional and thermal convection in magma chambers , 1987 .

[45]  P. Ortoleva,et al.  Oscillatory Zoning in Plagioclase Feldspar , 1980, Science.