There are several possible explanations to account for the lack of vertical motion at the Lascar volcano, Pritchard said. The first and most obvious is that the satellite passes took place at times between inflations and subsequent deflations, so that no net ground motion was recorded. It could also be that magma is somehow able to get from within Earth to the atmosphere without deforming surfaces at all; or that a magma chamber might be deep enough to allow an eruption without surface deformations being visible, even though deformation is occurring at depth.
The study is also noteworthy in that Simons and Pritchard were able to do their work without leaving their offices on the Caltech campus. The data analysis was done with software developed at Caltech and the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the authors say this software was critical to the study's success.
Simons, an assistant professor of geophysics at Caltech, and Pritchard are scheduled to attend a geophysics conference in Chile in October, and will try to see some or all of the four volcanoes at that time.
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