Hazard assessment at the Quaternary La Garrotxa Volcanic Field (NE Iberia)

La Garrotxa Volcanic Field (GVF) in the NE Iberian Peninsula is one of the Quaternary alkaline volcanic provinces that form part of the European Cenozoic Rift System. Active over the last 0.7 Ma, the most recent dated eruption in this volcanic zone took place in the early Holocene (11–13 ka). Its volcanic activity has varied from Hawaiian to violent Strombolian, with numerous episodes of phreatomagmatic activity, and is controlled by the main regional normal faults generated during the Neogene extension that affected the area. Despite the potential for future eruptions and the fact that this is a densely populated industrial area, no volcanic hazard assessment of the field has ever been conducted. In this work, we present the first comprehensive evaluation of the volcanic hazard in the GVF via (1) an evaluation of its volcanic susceptibility, (2) a temporal recurrence rate analysis, (3) a simulation of different eruptive scenarios, such as lava flows, pyroclastic density currents and ashfall, and (4) the elaboration of a qualitative hazard map. The final hazard map shows that the GVF can be subdivided into five different hazard levels, knowledge that will be useful for land-use management and the drawing up of emergency plans. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2015