The Working Group on "Seismic phenomena associated with volcanic activity", or "Volcanism & Earthquakes" for short, was established to cover an increasingly important field in seismology. This ranges from the seismic monitoring of volcanoes to the interpretation of seismic signals during various stages of activity.
With the availability of broadband seismometers and seismic recorders with a sufficiently large dynamic range, volcano seismology has become a major tool to retrieve information on the internal dynamics of volcanic source mechanisms.
For the last six years or so, this working group has been a major forum to foster the use of broadband equipment on volcanoes. This approach has been adopted by many researchers in seismic experiments worldwide.
However, seismology alone cannot solve the problem.
This is why the Working Group, in particular in the last few years, has encouraged scientists from Geology, Geodesy, Petrology, Physics and other related disciplines to attend the annual workshops. Discussion of seismological and other observations from volcanoes have led to the multiparameter and multi-disciplinary approach to monitoring and interpreting volcanic behaviour.
Informal annual workshops and the publication of the proceedings in special issues of scientific journals have become a well established activity of the Working Group. The informal character of the meetings have provided an atmosphere which encourages productive discussions. This has resulted in several international co-operations and joint experiments amongst members of the group, such as the MULTIMO project.