384010-384801 

(was 1804)
Observat Vulcanolo de Cabo Verde (OVCV)

ex Aeroporto Francisco Mendes

Praia
Ilha de Santiago
República de Cabo Verde

Cape Verde is a volcanic hotspot located in the Macaronesia ecoregion of the North Atlantic Ocean, approximately 375 miles (604 km) off the coast of West Africa. This volcanic archipelago is composed of ten islands (of which nine are inhabited) and eight islets. Holocen volcanism is mainly located at the islands of Sao Vicente, Brava and Fogo (Simkin and Siebert, 1994). Historical volcanic activity has been only recorded at the island of Fogo which consists of a single massive stratovolcano that is the most prominent of the Cape Verde Islands. The roughly circular 25-kilometer-wide island is truncated by a large 9-kilometer-wide caldera that is located asymmetrically NE of the center of the island and is breached to the east. A steep-sided central cone, Pico do Fogo, rises more than 1 kilometer above the caldera floor to about 100-meters above the caldera rim, forming the 2,829-meters-high point of the island. Pico do Fogo, which is capped by a 500-m-wide, 150-meters-deep summit crater, was apparently in almost continuous activity from the time of Portuguese settlement in 1500 AD until around 1760. Later historical lava flows, some from vents on the caldera floor, reached the eastern coast. The most recent eruption on the caldera floor took place en 1995. The Observat???? Vulcanol????o de Cabo Verde (OVCV) has been recently established as a joint effort of the Laboratorio de Engenharia Civil (LEC), the Servi Nacional de Protec Civil (SNPC) and the Universidade de Cabo Verde (UNICV) for reducing volcanic risk in the Cape Verde Islands.

Staff & Graduate Students:

Sonia Melo Silva Victoria, UNICV

Alberto da Mota Gomes, UNICV

JoCardoso, UNICV

Zuleyka  Bandomo Ruiz, LEC

Inocencio M. J. Barros, LEC

Josnt???? Fernandes Dias Fonseca, LEC

Paulo Fernandes Tavares, LEC

Osvaldino C. A. Costa, SNPC

Jair Rodrs, SNPC

Jeremias Cabral, Ph.D. Student, CVARG-Universidade dos Aes

Vera Alfama, Ph.D. Student, CVARG-Universidade dos Aes

Volcano  Monitoring Program

Permanent instrumental network

Due to increased awareness of volcanic hazard in Fogo Island following the 1995 eruption, it was installed a permanent instrumental network for the volcanic surveillance (Project VIGIL) in Cape Verde thanks to the PortugueseAID Agency.  This permanent instrumental network is located in Fogo and Brava islands and consist of (1) two broadband triaxial seismic stations (CMG-40T) at FPPC and BCCH observation sites, (2) five short-period triaxial seismic stations at FMLN, FPVC, FCVT, FBAL, and FMVE observation sites, (3) four bi-axial tilt stations (AGI701) at FMLN, FPPC, FLAN and FMVE observation sites. The network was complemented by an automatic meteorological STATION. A telemetry infrastructure based on spread-spectrum radio-links with three separate repeaters was installed to transmit the data in real-time over a distance of V100 km to LEC in the capital, Praia, Santiago Island (Fonseca et al., 2003).

Discrete volcano monitoring observations

Geophysics

Discrete geophysical monitoring tasks are also regularly performed:

• surface temperature survey at the summit crater of Pico do Fogo (monthly).
• fumarole outlet temperature measurements from the crater of Pico do Fogo (monthly).
• thermal imaging from the summit crater of Pico do Fogo with infrared camera (yearly).
• surface temperature surveys at the islands of Fogo and Brava (yearly).

Geochemistry

Discrete geochemical monitoring tasks are regularly also performed:

• diffuse CO₂ and H₂S emission from the summit crater of Pico do Fogo (monthly)
• diffuse CO₂ emission from the islands of Fogo and Brava (yearly)
• diffuse CO₂ emission from SVicente island (every 2 years)
• fumarole chemical and isotopic composition from the crater of Pico do Fogo (yearly)
• miniDOAS measurements to evaluate SO₂ emission from Pico do Fogo (yearly)
• dissolved gas geochemistry in ground waters from Brava, Fogo and S㯠Vicente islands (yearly)

Geodetics

Discrete geodetic monitoring tasks will be also regularly performed:

• GPS survey at Fogo Island (yearly) using a network of 23 geodetic monuments

Volcanic Alert System

The Servi篠Nacional de Protec Civil (SNPC) is in-charge for the communication of the volcanic alerts in Cape Verde after being provided by the Observat???? Vulcanol????o de Cabo Verde (OVCV). The volcanic alert system consists of a three colour alert levels: green, yellow and red.

Foreign Advisors and Collaborators:
Nemesio M. Pz, ITER (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)
Pedro A. Hernoez, ITER (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)

Jesús M. Iba???? Instituto Geofo Andaluz (Granada, Spain)

Jos. Rodrz Losada, ULL (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)

Antonio Eff-Darwich, ULL (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)

Carmen Romero, ULL (Tenerife, Canary Islands, Spain)

Juan Jesús Coello Bravo (Fundaci????elesforo Bravo-Juan Coello, Tenerife, Spain)

Luonzz  de Vallejo, UCM (Madrid, Spain)

Mercedes Ferrer, IGME (Madrid, Spain)

Francesco Sortino, INGV (Palermo, Italy)

Kenji Notsu, University of Tokyo (Japan)

Takeshi Sagiya, Nagoya University (Japan)
SpanishAID Agency, AECID (Madrid, Spain)

Portuguese IPAD Agency (Lisbon, Portugal)

Comisionado Exterior, Gobierno Aut????o de Canarias (Canary Islands, Spain)

Cabildo Insular de Tenerife (Canary Islands, Spain)