Ground that sank, then rose<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
From January 2018 to mid-2022, ground north of Santiago crater moved about 1.2 inches (3 centimeters) away from the satellite. The team reads that as the main reservoir deflating, continuing a trend seen in earlier studies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
From mid-2022 on, that ground crept back toward the satellite at roughly 0.16 inches (4 millimeters) a year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“When it’s subsiding, that means that there’s probably magma draining away from the volcano, but once the ground starts uplifting again, that can mean that there’s potentially new magma moving in,” Johnson said in the Penn State release.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A simple model of a pressurized sphere placed this reservoir near the center of the caldera, about 10,500 feet (3,200 meters) down. It lost about 46 million cubic feet (1.3 million cubic meters) while the ground sank. By February 2024 it had regained about 16 million cubic feet (450,000 cubic meters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
A shallow pocket under Santiago<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Santiago crater told a separate story. The ground around it went on sinking through 2024, uplift or no uplift elsewhere in the caldera.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So Johnson’s team added a second, much smaller source, roughly 660 feet (200 meters) under the crater floor. According to the paper, it shrank by about 141,000 cubic feet (4,000 cubic meters) in the first period. In the second, it lost about 212,000 cubic feet (6,000 cubic meters).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The authors suggest the shallow pocket’s decline may reflect less magma feeding the crater after the lava lake weakened in 2016. To Johnson, that independent behavior shows the volcano’s plumbing is more complex than a single chamber.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every measurement came from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellite, which passes over Masaya about once every 12 days. The method, called InSAR, compares radar images from different dates to catch tiny shifts in the ground. Scientists used it to spot uplift at Iran’s Taftan volcano<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n “Cloud penetration is important for volcanoes because many of them, like Masaya, are in tropical areas where there is often cloud cover,” Kim explained. That matters in Nicaragua, which had only three GPS stations in early 2020, according to the paper.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Masaya lies about 12 miles (20 kilometers) southeast of Managua, and around 2 million people live within that radius. Its caldera became Nicaragua’s first national park in 1979. The lava lake<\/a> in Santiago crater has been its big draw.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In April 2001, a small blast threw debris toward tourists in the parking lot on the crater rim. Several vehicles were damaged, the study recalls. The volcano’s constant degassing also often pushes sulfur dioxide above World Health Organization safe limits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program<\/a> reports that landslides inside the crater covered the lava lake on March 2, 2024. On October 9, 2026, ash plumes rose to 4,000 to 5,000 feet above sea level.<\/p>\n\n\n\n According to Penn State, the team found no immediate danger to nearby communities. Kim said steady monitoring reveals the volcano’s normal behavior, so that if warnings are ever needed, “we can do that in a timely manner.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n The authors compare Masaya’s two-level setup with K\u012blauea in Hawaii, another basaltic volcano with on-and-off lava lakes. Both seem to have a small reservoir less than 3,300 feet (1 kilometer) deep. Below it sits a larger one, roughly 1.9 miles (3 kilometers) down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Other evidence fits the depth. Earlier gas readings pointed to storage 1.4 to 2.4 miles (2.3 to 3.8 kilometers) down, and the new model lands at about 2 miles.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In a 2018 study, Kirsten Stephens and Wauthier mapped this deep reservoir during a 2015 and 2016 surge of fresh magma, which brought the lava lake back. The new paper says the 2022 turn to swelling “could be indicative of a new magma supply from depth,” much like magma building up under Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n In 2015, the lava lake appeared only after about 141 million cubic feet (4 million cubic meters) of volume change. That is far more than the roughly 16 million cubic feet the reservoir had regained by February 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n An extra look at 2024 to April 2026 added about 56 million cubic feet (1.6 million cubic meters). Even so, the authors write that “significant further inflation may need to occur” before new lava activity at the vent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The depths and volumes come from simplified models of surface motion, not images of the chambers. Johnson said longer geodetic and modeling studies will be needed to monitor hazards at Masaya and similar volcanoes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The full study was published in Geophysical Research Letters<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Photo: Acana689 \/ Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Nicaragua’s Masaya volcano last sent out a major lava flow in 1772. Radar data from 2018 to 2024, though, show … <\/p>\n![\"Shaded](\"https:\/\/www.ecoticias.com\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/masaya-caldera-map-santiago-crater.jpg\")
Radar that sees through clouds<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
Tourists, gas and 2 million neighbors<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
A layout like K\u012blauea’s<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
The refill a lava lake needs<\/h2>\n\n\n\n