Episodic Magma Hammers for the 15 January 2022 Cataclysmic Eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai

Abstract

Understanding the forces and magma system dynamics on timescales of seconds to minutes remains challenging. In the January 2022 phreatoplinian Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption, four remarkably similar seismic subevents within a 5-min interval occurred during the intensifying early eruptive phase. The subevents are similar in waveforms and durations (∼25 s each). Each subevent begins with an unusual negative P-wave polarity which is inferred, using full-wave seismic modeling, to be caused by an upward single-force mechanism at the volcano created by a magma hammer likely in response to magma flow blockage/constriction during the early part of the eruption as discharge rapidly increased over orders of magnitude with concomitant conduit geometry evolution and instability. Our proposed episodic magma hammer model is consistent with thermodynamic and phase properties of the magmatic mixture, and yields an estimate of conduit mass flow in agreement with vent discharge rates derived from satellite imagery of plume heights.