Volcanologist Dr. Thomas Christopher, while speaking on radio discusses the carrying levels of sulphur dioxide being recorded by the UWI’s team and what those varying levels indicate.
“We took a measurement on Sunday and it was just over 200 tonnes. One week before, which was the Sunday before, it was 1,000 tonnes per day, and we need to try and figure out what’s causing it to move around like that, because when we measure gas or any sort of gas, we’re making a number of assumptions. We are assuming that what we’re measuring is everything that’s coming from the source or is coming from the course totally; it’s being modulated by the source, that may not be the case if there is a dome up there, which we don’t know, it could be affecting how easily gas can come out and basically it would affect what we see.
We’re also assuming that everything that we’re measuring is everything that is coming out of the top, which may not be the case as well. So there are a number of things we need to constrain first before we can say anything with much confidence and what the gas actually means, but I think what we can say right now is that if you are seeing 1,000 tonnes per day, it suggests that the situation that the volcano is in has not stopped yet.” He said.
