I watch the recent earthquake list from work (in my spare time, of course) with the finger command (I don't have WWW access there). Are any severe earthquakes associated with volcanic activity, or is it mostly low level and localized? I just wanted to know if, when I spotted activity that is near volcanoes, is it associated with volcanic activity?

rocky Tom Kirby

Mr. Kirby,

Yours is one of the best questions so far asked (in my humble opinion). There are certainly earthquakes associated with volcanic activity but they are usually small and shallow. Volcanic earthquakes are almost always due to the movement of magma. When a volcano starts to show some unrest the earthquakes tend to be deep. As the magma batch moves to the surface the earthquakes likewise migrate upward. Most of these earthquakes are probably too small to make it into the news other than in the local area. The complication, of course, is that most of the world's volcanoes occur in areas that are very tectonically active (subduction zones). Ultimately they are all due to the subduction process, but other than that they are not really related.

Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii 

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