Mayotte seismic crisis: building knowledge in near real-time by combining land and ocean-bottom seismometers, first results

The brutal onset of seismicity offshore Mayotte island North of the Mozambique Channel, Indian Ocean, that occurred in May 2018 caught the population, authorities, and scientific community off guard. Around 20 potentially felt earthquakes were recorded in the first 5 days, up to magnitude Mw 5.9. The scientific community had little pre-existing knowledge of the seismic activity in the region due to poor seismic network coverage. During 2018 and 2019, the MAYOBS/REVOSIMA seismology group was progressively built between four French research institutions to improve instrumentation and data sets to monitor what we know now as an on-going exceptional sub-marine basaltic eruption. After the addition of 3 medium-band stations on Mayotte island and 1 on Grande Glorieuse island in early 2019, the data recovered from the Ocean Bottom Seismometers were regularly processed by the group to improve the location of the earthquakes detected daily by the land network. We first built a new local 1D velocity model and established specific data processing procedures. The local 1.66 low VP/VS ratio we estimated is compatible with a volcanic island context. We manually picked about 125,000 P and S phases on land and sea bottom stations to locate more than 5,000 events between February 2019 and May 2020. The earthquakes outline two separate seismic clusters offshore that we named Proximal and Distal. The Proximal cluster, located 10km offshore Mayotte eastern coastlines, is 20 to 50 km deep and has a cylindrical shape. The Distal cluster start 5 km to the east of the Proximal cluster and extends below Mayotte's new volcanic edifice, from 50 km up to 25 km depth. The two clusters appear seismically separated, however our dataset is insufficient to firmly demonstrate this.

Keyword(s)

Indian Ocean, Volcano seismology, Volcano monitoring, Africa, Remote sensing of volcanoes

Full Text

FilePagesSizeAccess
Publisher's official version
384 Mo
Supplementary data
73 Mo
How to cite
Saurel Jean-Marie, Jacques Eric, Aiken Chastity, Lemoine Anne, Retailleau Lise, Lavayssière Aude, Foix Oceane, Dofal Anthony, Laurent Angèle, Mercury Nicolas, Crawford Wayne, Lemarchand Arnaud, Daniel Romuald, Pelleau Pascal, de Berc Maxime Bès, Dectot Grégoire, Bertil Didier, Roullé Agathe, Broucke Céleste, Colombain Alison, Jund Hélène, Besançon Simon, Guyavarch Pierre, Kowalski Philippe, Roudaut Mickael, Apprioual Ronan, Battaglia Jean, Bodihar Soumya, Boissier Patrice, Bouin Marie Paule, Brunet Christophe, Canjamale Kévin, Catherine Philippe, Desfete Nicolas, Doubre Cécile, Dretzen Rémi, Dumouche Tom, Fernagu Philippe, Ferrazzini Valérie, Fontaine Fabrice, Gaillot Arnaud, Géli Louis, Griot Cyprien, Grunberg Marc, Guzel Emre Can, Hoste-Colomer Roser, Lambotte Sophie, Lauret Frédéric, Léger Félix, Maros Emmanuel, Peltier Aline, Vergne Jérôme, Satriano Claudio, Tronel Frédéric, van der Woerd Jérôme, Fouquet Yves, Jorry Stephan, Rinnert Emmanuel, Thinon Isabelle, Feuillet Nathalie (2022). Mayotte seismic crisis: building knowledge in near real-time by combining land and ocean-bottom seismometers, first results. Geophysical Journal International. 228 (2). 1281-1293. https://doi.org/10.1093/gji/ggab392, https://archimer.ifremer.fr/doc/00724/83604/

Copy this text