Groundwater Interacting at Depth With Hot Plastic Magma Triggers Phreatic Eruptions at Yugama Crater Lake of Kusatsu-Shirane Volcano (Japan)

Interpreting the triggering mechanisms for phreatic eruptions is a key to improving the hazard assessment of crater lakes. Yugama Crater Lake at Kusatsu-Shirane volcano, Japan, is the site of frequent phreatic eruptions with the recent eruptions in 1982-83, 1989, and 1996, as well as volcanic unrest, including earthquake swarms in 2014 and 2018. To understand the magma-hydrothermal interaction beneath Yugama Crater Lake, we analyzed lake waters from November 2005 to May 2021. From 2005 to 2012, Cl and SO4 concentrations decreased slowly, suggesting the development of a self-sealing zone surrounding the crystallizing magma. We focused on Ca, Al, and Si concentrations as representatives of the breach and dissolution of minerals comprising the self-sealing zone and the Mg/Cl ratio as an indicator for enhanced interaction between groundwater and hot plastic rock within the self-sealing zone. In 2006-2007, the Ca, Al, Si concentrations and the Mg/Cl ratio increased. No Cl and SO4 increase during this period suggests the self-sealing zone was leached by deep circulating groundwater rather than by magmatic fluids injection. After the 2014 earthquakes, Ca, Al, and Si increased again but were associated with a significant Cl increase and a pH decrease. We believe that the HCl-rich magmatic fluids breached the self-sealing zone, leading to fluids injection from the crystallizing magma to the Yugama crater. During this period, the Mg/Cl ratio did not increase, meaning that magmatic fluids ascending from the breached area of the self-sealing zone inhibited deep intrusion of groundwater into the hot plastic rock region. In 2018, magmatic fluids ascended through the self-sealing zone again with less intensity than in 2014. All eruptions since 1982 have been accompanied by a Mg/Cl ratio increase and a Cl decrease, whereas, when a significant HCl input occurs, as in 2014, no eruptions and no Mg/Cl ratio increase occurred. This demonstrates that the groundwater-hot plastic rock interaction, rather than the magmatic fluids input, played an essential role in triggering phreatic eruptions; i.e., phreatic eruptions can potentially occur without clear signs of fresh magma intrusions.