• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.30 no.3
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• pp.341-350
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• 2014

Landsat images can monitor the snow-covered Earth surface variations with the ground resolution of 30m and the multi-spectral bands in the visible, NIR, SWIR and TIR spectral regions for the last 30 years. The Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ) of Chile consists of many volcanoes, and all of the volcanoes are covered with snow at the top of mountain. Snow cover area in southern province of the SVZ of Chile (37 to $46^{\circ}S$) have been influenced by significant frontal retreats as well as eruptive activities. In this study, we have investigated the changes of the snow-cover area and snow-line elevation at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile from three Landsat images acquired on Feb. 1990, 2005 and 2011. The snow-cover areas are 13.42, 26.75 and $21.60km^2$ at Mt. Villarrica in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively, and 3.82, 25.12 and $8.89km^2$ at Mt. Llaima in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively. The snow-line elevations are 1871, 1738 and 1826m at Mt. Villarrica in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively, and 2007, 1822 and 1818m at Mt. Llaima in 1990, 2005 and 2011, respectively. The results indicate that both of the snow-cover and snow-line changes are strongly related with the volcanic activity change. The results demonstrate that the snow-cover area and snow-line elevation changes can be used as an indicator of the volcanic activity at Mt. Villarrica and Mt. Llaima, Chile.

• Korean Journal of Remote Sensing
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• v.33 no.3
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• pp.287-299
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• 2017

The Southern Volcanic Zone (SVZ) of Chile consists of many volcanoes, including the Mt.Villarrica and Mt.Llaima, and the two volcanoes are covered with snow at the top of Mountain. The purpose of this study is to analyze the relationship between the ice caps and the volcanic activity of the two volcanoes for 25 years by using the satellite image data are available in a time series. A total of 60 Landsat-5 TM and Landsat-7 ETM + data were used for the study from September 1986 to February 2011. Using NDSI (Normalized Difference Snow Index) algorithm and SRTM DEM, snow cover and snowline were extracted. Finally, the snow cover area, lower-snowline, and upper-snowline, which are quantitative indicators of snow cover change, were directly or indirectly affected by volcanic activity, were extracted from the satellite images. The results show that the volcanic activity of Villarrica volcano is more than 55% when the snow cover is less than 20 and the lower-snowline is 1,880 m in Llaima volcano. In addition, when the upper-snowline of the two volcanoes is below -170m, it can be confirmed that the volcano is differentiated with a probability of about 90%. Therefore, the changes in volcanic snowfall are closely correlated with volcanic activity, and it is possible to indirectly deduce volcanic activity by monitoring the snow.