GEOCHEMICAL SURVEY OF HOT AND COLD WATERS

AROUND THE M ISTI V OLCANO

V. Cruz 1, P. J. M asías 2

1. Instituto Geológic o Minero y Metalúrgico INGEMMET, Av . Canadá N º 1470, San Borja Lima 41,
Perú, (v cruz@ingem met.gob. pe). Formerly: Instituto Geof ísico del Perú, Lima.

2. Instituto Geológic o Minero y Metalúrgico INGEMMET, Av . Canadá N º 1470, San Borja Lima 41,
Perú, (pmas ias@ ingemm et.gob.pe).

AB STR AC T

The summ it of Misti volcano (5822 m .s.n.m.) is located at 17 km from the do wnto wn of
Arequipa (~1000000 inhabitants), the secon d largest and important city of Peru. The volcano
piedm ont extends to the vicinity of the city and includes the most recent volcanic products of
its activity ( Sub-plinian er uption ~340 BC - 200 AD). The present-day vo lcan ic activity is
lim ited to fum arolic emissions at the sum mit.
Hazar ds related to this volcano are tephra falls, pyroclastic flo ws an d sur ges that wo uld reach
13 km far from the crater and accor din g to the crater geom etry it is probable that the direction
of future pyroclastic flows will be to the south reachin g the subur bs of the city. Consequently,
Misti appear s as one of the high est priority in volcano monitoring in so uthern Per u.

Since 1998, after a geo chem ical survey on some 15 spr ings aro un d Misti, we selected and
started m onitoring the “Charcani V”, hot spring lo cated 6 km northwest from the crater,
bet ween 3250 an d 3550m altitude. This work allo wed us to establish a baseline that dep icts
short-term (week ly to monthly) variations in composition and phy sical param eters.

Analy ses of the water s collected aro un d the volcano displays ev ident geochemical trends that
are interpreted as the result of m ixing processes between fresh m eteoric waters and magmatic
fluids, som etimes interacting with a deep chloride reservoir. In f act, we can distin guish three
types of water s:
- Earth-alkalinech loride- sulf ate
- Alkalinechloride-sulfate
- Alkalinebicar bon ate-sulf ate

Accor din g to the results o btained dur in g the per iod of 8 year-o ld monitoring (1998 to 2005), it
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has been observed that the chloride (Cl ), Sulphate ( SO4 ) ions an d the parameters of
temperature and pH hav e suffered con siderable pulsation s in the period comprisin g the year
2001. Also, in the part summ it part of the Misti volcano we noticed im portant variations: 1) an
increase of the f um arolic intensity of the crater active visible from Ar equipa city sin ce
beginnings of the month of August of the 2001, 2) an increase of the tem perature in the crater
dome that varied from a maxim um of 221ºC ( December 1, 1997) until a m axim um of 430ºC
(September 11, 2001). In coincidence with the physical and chemical variations o bserved in
mid 2001 a strong (8.2 M w) earthquake occurred in the so uthern Per u on June 23. The reported
hypocentral location was 16 º14' lat. S, 73º31'lon g. W and 28 Km of depth.

On active volcanoes, sulfate an d chlorine elements essentially com e from the interaction of
water with acid gas species (HCl, SO2/H2 S). Therefore, the observed geo chemical chan ges
could be explained by a m ixing bet ween the hy drothermal water with surroun din g shallo w cold
waters with lower sulf ate and ch lorine concentrations. This m ixin g process co uld be the
consequence cause of a permeability increase in side the volcanic edifice due to the intense
shake induced by the earthquake of Jun e 23r d, 2001.