Volcanic activity at the East African Rift System as seen from space, case study Nyamuragira Volcano, D.R. Congo.

Nyamuragira volcano is an active volcano near the city of Goma in the Democratic Republic of the Congo, situated about 25 kilometers north of Lake Kivu. It has been described as Africa's most active volcano and has erupted over 40 times since 1885. on 2 January 2010 Nyamuragira began spewing out lava flows. Extensive lava flows from the 2010 eruption can be seen on satellite photographs reaching 25 kilometers south-west to Lake Kivu, about 22 kilometers north-west and 35 kilometers north-north-east. The volcano erupted again on 5 November 2011.That eruption produced a 400-meter-high column of lava, and it is said to have been its largest eruption in 100 years. Volcanic activity attributed to The Kivu rift resulted from a sub-equatorial extensional motion and normal faulting and accompanied with seismological activities.  It suggests a complicated lower and upper crust tectonic patten and old neo tectonic settings.

 

It is a challenge to determine active tectonic and geologic structure attributed to magma eruption. Shallow and deep geologic structures around the volcanic area. Heterogeneities of the lithosphere and its impact on the volcanic activities. Old and neo tectonics responsible for volcanic and seismic activities. quantitatively predict the position and direction of dike intrusions and resulting eruptive fissures at volcanoes, because they are governed by the interplay between several factors, such as a heterogeneous regional stress field, preexisting discontinuities and heterogeneous and anisotropic properties of rocks.

  Radar altimetry data has been used to derive gravity and its variations over the world's oceans and an excellent tool for mapping sea floor structures, including tectonics, sea mounts and rifts. On the other hand, the Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) satellite mission has widely demonstrated its sensitivity to ongoing mass redistribution within the various sub-systems of the earth. Finally, GOCE (Gravity field and steady-state Ocean Circulation Explorer) satellite is the first satellite mission that observes gradient of the Earth gravity field from space.  Integrated satellite gravity data have been used to delineate the tectonic settings, magma referred pathway, magma reservoirs and vertical dikes.