# Imaging hydrothermal alteration with electrical resistivity tomography in La Soufrière de Guadeloupe volcano

Aida Mendieta, Marina Rosas-Carbajal, Raphaël Bajou, Patrick Baud, Sébastien Deroussi, Tomaso Esposti Ongaro, Jean-Christophe Komorowski, Alexandra R.L. Kushnir, Marlène Villeneuve, Michael Heap

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Aida Mendieta, Marina Rosas-Carbajal, Raphaël Bajou, Patrick Baud, Sébastien Deroussi, et al. Imaging hydrothermal alteration with electrical resistivity tomography in La Soufrière de Guadeloupe volcano. EGU Vienna, Apr 2025, Vienna, Austria. 10.5194/egusphere-egu24-9520. hal-05397610

HAL Id: hal-05397610

https://hal.science/hal-05397610v1

Submitted on 4 Dec 2025

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# Imaging hydrothermal alteration with electrical resistivity tomography in La Soufrière de Guadeloupe volcano

Aida Mendieta<fnref n="1" />, Marina Rosas-Carbajal<fnref n="1" />, Raphaël Bajou<fnref n="1" />,<fnref n="2" />, Patrick Baud<fnref n="3" />, Sébastien Deroussi<fnref n="1" />, Tomaso Esposti Ongaro<fnref n="4" />, Jean-Christophe Komorowski<fnref n="1" />, Alexandra R.L. Kushnir<fnref n="5" />, Marlène Villeneuve<fnref n="6" />, and Michael J. Heap<fnref n="3" />,<fnref n="7" />

Hydrothermal alteration plays a major role in volcanic instability. Improving techniques that allow us to better understand the timescales of alteration in active volcanoes is thus paramount. Since the reactivation of the fumarolic field at the top of the dome of La Soufrière de Guadeloupe (Guadeloupe, France) in 1992 and the expansion of its surface area in recent years, the area of study is subjected to prolonged variable alteration that has promoted past flank collapses and can also influence permeability and thus shallow depth overpressurization. During a field campaign in May 2022 we performed 25 electrical resistivity tomography (ERT) profiles in the summit of La Soufrière, next to active fumaroles and acid boiling ponds. These ERT profiles were inverted using the open-source code pyGIMLi. Thanks to the ERT profiles we are able to roughly map the altered areas to a depth of about 20 m in this zone of La Soufrière. Some of the byproducts of alteration that have been identified in La Soufrière are clays, sulfates and pyrite. Thus, we infer that the low electrical resistivity zones (<20 Ωm) correspond to alteration and high electrical resistivity (>1500 Ωm) corresponds to unaltered rock. Low electrical resistivity anomalies are observed north of the Breislack fault, near the fumaroles. The explored north-most region is characterized by higher values of electrical resistivity. We take into account ground temperature and spatial variability to interpret the electrical conductivity anomalies and we use this first high-resolution resistivity model to plan a repetition of our experiment. This time-lapse experiment will allow us to estimate the evolution of hydrothermal alteration in the volcano's summit over a 2-year period in the context of the current ongoing multiparameter unrest.

<footnote n="1">¹Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France</footnote>

<footnote n="2">²IRFU, CEA, Université Paris-Saclay, F-91191 Gif-sur-Yvette, France</footnote>

<footnote n="3">³Université de Strasbourg, CNRS, Institut Terre et Environnement de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, France</footnote>

<footnote n="4">⁴Instituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Sezione di Pisa, Pisa, Italy</footnote>

<footnote n="5">⁵Rock Physics and Geofluids Laboratory, EPFL, Lausanne, Switzerland</footnote>

<footnote n="6">⁶Subsurface Engineering, Montanuniversität Leoben, Leoben, Austria</footnote>

<footnote n="7">⁷Institut Universitaire de France (IUF), Paris, France</footnote>