Initial results from a hydroacoustic network to monitor submarine lava flows near Mayotte Island

In 2019, a new underwater volcano was discovered at 3500 m below sea level (b.s.l.), 50 km east of Mayotte Island in the northern part of the Mozambique Channel. In January 2021, the submarine eruption was still going on and the volcanic activity, along with the intense seismicity that accompanies this crisis, was monitored by the recently created REVOSIMA (MAyotte VOlcano and Seismic Monitoring) network. In this framework, four hydrophones were moored in the SOFAR channel in October 2020. Surrounding the volcano, they monitor sounds generated by the volcanic activity and the lava flows. The first year of hydroacoustic data evidenced many earthquakes, underwater landslides, large marine mammal calls, along with anthropogenic noise. Of particular interest are impulsive signals that we relate to steam bursts during lava flow emplacement. A preliminary analysis of these impulsive signals (ten days in a year, and only one day in full detail) reveals that lava emplacement was active when our monitoring started, but faded out during the first year of the experiment. A systematic and robust detection of these specific signals would hence contribute to monitor active submarine eruptions in the absence of seafloor deep-tow imaging or swath-bathymetry surveys of the active area.