The 2008 Eruptive Unrest at Cerro Azul Volcano (Galapagos) Revealed by InSAR Data and a Novel Method for Geodetic Modelling

Cerro Azul is one of the most active volcanoes in the western Galapagos Islands, but its unrest episodes are poorly studied. Unrest, which started in 2007, culminated in two eruptive phases from 29 May to 11 June 2008. We investigate this unrest and the associated eruptions using interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) data and geodetic modelling. To overcome the unwrapping errors affecting some of our InSAR data, we invert the wrapped phase directly by estimating the integer ambiguities simultaneously with the geophysical parameters. Our results highlight how the eruption was preceded by long-term pre-eruptive inflation (October 2007-April 2008). During the first eruptive phase, most of the magma responsible for the inflation fed the lateral propagation of a radial dike, which caused a first deflation of the magmatic reservoir. During the second eruptive phase, the further lateral propagation of the dike fed a radial eruptive fissure at the base of the edifice, causing further deflation of the magmatic reservoir. From the first to the second eruptive phase, the radial dike changed its strike propagating toward a topographic low between Cerro Azul and Sierra Ncgra.