Recent Seismicity in the Ceboruco Volcano, Western Mexico

Abstract

The Ceboruco volcano is the largest (2280 m.a.s.l) of several volcanoes along the Tepic-Zacoalco rift zone in Nayarit state (Mexico). During the last 1000 years, this volcano had effusive-explosive episodes with eight eruptions providing an average of one eruption each 125 years. Since the last eruption occurred in 1870, 147 years ago, a new eruption likelihood is really high and dangerous due to nearby population centers, important roads and lifelines that traverse the volcano’s slopes. This hazards indicates the importance of monitoring the seismicity associated with the Ceboruco volcano whose ongoing activity is evidenced by fumaroles and earthquakes. During 2003 and 2008, this region was registered by just one Lennartz Marslite seismograph featuring a Lennartz Le3D sensor (1 Hz) [Rodríguez Uribe et al. (2013)] where they observed that seismicity rates and stresses appear to be increasing indicating higher levels of activity within the volcano. Until July 2017, a semi-permanent network with three Taurus (Nanometrics) and one Q330 Quanterra (Kinemetrics) digitizers with Lennartz 3Dlite sensors of 1 Hz natural frequency was registering in the area. In this study, we present the most recent seismicity obtained by the semipermanent network and a temporary network of 21 Obsidians 4X and 8X (Kinemetrics) covering an area of 16 km x 16 km with one station every 2.5-3 km recording from November 2016 to July 2017.