IMAGES of active volcanoes from Landsat, the American remote-sensing satellite, show distinctive thermal patterns that may help scientists to predict eruptions. Researchers in the US and Britain are optimistic that data obtained by remote sensing may be useful in determining how active an active volcano is.
Earth scientists from the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Houston, Texas, and the Open University in Milton Keynes have analysed pictures of active volcanoes in Chile and Ethiopia taken from the Landsat Thematic Mapper (Nature, vol 338, p 144). TM records short-wave infrared radiation emitted from regions that are much hotter than surrounding temperatures. The pictures also give information about the total flux of radiant heat from active volcanoes.
In the Landsat images taken between 1984 and 1987, the researchers found only one 'hot spot' in an area of active volcanoes, northern Chile. Other dormant, but not extinct, volcanoes in the area did not ...
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