Earthquakes to blame for Mount Sinabung eruptions?

Earthquakes to blame for Mount Sinabung eruptions?
Jun 25, 2015
by Deanna Conners in Blogs » Earth, Science Wire

Mount Sinabung in Indonesia was once considered a dormant volcano, until it erupted for a brief one month period in 2010. Then, on September 15, 2013, it began erupting again and the volcanic activity has continued until today.

Understanding why volcanoes come out of dormancy is no easy task for scientists, but a paper published last year in Solid Earth suggests that some of the recent megathrust earthquakes in Sumatra could be to blame.

Mount Sinabung is one of several volcanoes that lie along the Sumatra Trench subduction zone in the Indian Ocean. This region, which is part of the Ring of Fire, is very active geologically. The Lake Toba caldera, which is about 40 kilometers (25 miles) southeast of Mount Sinabung, was the site of the last known supervolcanic eruption on Earth about 75,000 years ago.

Three megathrust earthquakes that occurred in this region during 2005 to 2007 may have triggered the most recent volcanic activity at Mount Sinabung, scientists say. These earthquakes include the magnitude 8.6 earthquake in 2005, the magnitude 7.9 earthquake in 2007, and another magnitude 8.4 earthquake in 2007. The devastating magnitude 9.2 megathrust earthquake that struck Indonesia in December 2004 was likely not involved, however, because this one occurred in an area to the north of the volcanic arc.

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http://earthsky.org/earth/earthquakes-to-blame-for-mount-sinabung-eruptions?utm_source=EarthSky+News&utm_campaign=fd39dd3d7a-EarthSky_News&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c643945d79-fd39dd3d7a-393525109