Magnitude scale for LP events: a quantification scheme for volcanic quakes

The peculiar source characteristics of long-period seismic events (time persistency of the source, low-frequency peaks in the source spectrum, absence of high-frequency radiation) prevent the formation of a definite high-frequency coda in the seismograms. In contrast, this is well formed in volcano-tectonic quakes. For this reason, the widely used duration magnitude scale that is based on the proportionality between the energy and the coda duration cannot be used for long-period estimation. In observatory practice, the long-period magnitude is sometimes estimated using the same duration magnitude scale, leading to confusing results. In this report, we show a new method to estimate the magnitude of long-period events that generally occur for volcanoes, with some application examples from data for Mt Etna (Italy), Colima Volcano (Mexico) and Campi Flegrei (Italy).