The Monitoring of CO2 Soil Degassing as Indicator of Increasing Volcanic Activity: The Paroxysmal Activity at Stromboli Volcano in 2019-2021

Since 2016, Stromboli volcano has shown an increase of both frequency and energy of the volcanic activity; two strong paroxysms occurred on 3 July and 28 August 2019. The paroxysms were followed by a series of major explosions, which culminated on January 2021 with magma overflows and lava flows along the Sciara del Fuoco. This activity was monitored by the soil CO2 flux network of Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), which highlighted significant changes before the paroxysmal activity. The CO2 flux started to increase in 2006, following a long-lasting positive trend, interrupted by short-lived high amplitude transients in 2016-2018 and 2018-2019. This increasing trend was recorded both in the summit and peripheral degassing areas of Stromboli, indicating that the magmatic gas release affected the whole volcanic edifice. These results suggest that Stromboli volcano is in a new critical phase, characterized by a great amount of volatiles exsolved by the shallow plumbing system, which could generate other energetic paroxysms in the future.

Automated summary

Since 2016, Stromboli volcano has experienced an increase in frequency and energy of volcanic activity, leading to strong paroxysms in 2019 and magma overflows in 2021. Monitoring data from the soil CO2 flux network of INGV indicated significant changes before the paroxysmal activity, suggesting the possibility of future energetic eruptions due to a large amount of volatiles exsolved by the shallow plumbing system.