Researchers in Italy have developed a lidar set-up that they say can be used to track the spatio-temporal evolution of volcanic plumes and could even play a role in eruption prediction. The team from the Italian National Agency for New Technologies says that its instrument, which uses a CO_2 laser, could be pointed at the mouth of a volcano to monitor for tell-tale changes in gas concentration (Optics Letters 34 800).rn"The transformation of gases inside a volcanic plume is not well understood," Luca Fiorani, a researcher in the laser applications section, told OLE. "Our research demonstrates that we can help measure the flux rate of gases and even raise the alarm when gas concentration rises."
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