Volcano-tectonic activity at Deception Island volcano following a seismic swarm in the Bransfield Rift (2014-2015) Almendros González, Francisco Javier Carmona Rodríguez, Enrique Jiménez Morales, Vanessa Díaz Moreno, Alejandro Lorenzo Capel, Francisco This work was partially funded by the Spanish Ministry of Economy through projects POL2006-08663, CTM2009-08085, CTM2010-11740, and CTM2011-16049 and by the Assignment IGME-1198 for Supporting Activities to the Spanish Polar Committee. Additional support comes from project CTM2016-77315-R. The work of A. Díaz-Moreno has been partially supported also by the NERC grant NE/P00105X/1 and project TEC2015-68752. In September 2014 there was a sharp increase in the seismic activity of the Bransfield Strait, Antarctica. More than 9,000 earthquakes with magnitudes up to 4.6 located SE of Livingston Island were detected over a period of 8 months. A few months after the series onset, local seismicity at the nearby (~35 km) Deception Island volcano increased, displaying enhanced long-period seismicity and several outbursts of volcano-tectonic (VT) earthquakes. Before February 2015, VT earthquakes occurred mainly at 5-20 km SW of Deception Island. In mid?February the numbers and sizes of VT earthquakes escalated, and their locations encompassed the whole volcanic edifice, suggesting a situation of generalized unrest. The activity continued in anomalously high levels at least until May 2015. Given the spatial and temporal coincidence, it is unlikely that the Livingston series and the Deception VT swarm were unrelated. We propose that the Livingston series may have produced a triggering effect on Deception Island volcano. Dynamic stresses associated to the seismic swarm may have induced overpressure in the unstable volcanic system, leading to a magmatic intrusion that may in turn have triggered the VT swarm. Alternatively, both the Livingston earthquakes and the VT swarm could be consequences of a magmatic intrusion at Deception Island. The Livingston series would be an example of precursory distal VT swarm, which seems to be a common feature preceding volcanic eruptions and magma intrusions in long-dormant volcanoes. 2024-12-13T12:09:32Z 2024-12-13T12:09:32Z 2018 journal article Almendros, J., Carmona, E., Jiménez, V., Díaz-Moreno, A., & Lorenzo, F. (2018). Volcano-tectonic activity at Deception Island volcano following a seismic swarm in the Bransfield Rift (2014–2015). Geophysical Research Letters, 45, 4788–4798. https://doi.org/10.1029/2018GL077490 https://hdl.handle.net/10481/98001 10.1029/2018gl077490 eng http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/ open access Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 License Wiley