Spatio-temporal forecasting of future volcanism at Harrat Khaybar, Saudi Arabia

Abstract The 180,000 km 2 of Arabian lava fields (“harrats” in Arabic) form one the largest distributed basaltic provinces world. most recent eruption 1256 AD, on outskirts Medina, as well shallow dike emplacement 2009, ~ 200 northeast city, suggest future volcanic threat to this area. Harrat Khaybar (~ 1.7 Ma present) is and compositionally diverse fields; it located 137 Medina covers 14,000 . Here, we present a new event record first estimation potential locations timing volcanism Khaybar. Volcanic vents eruptive fissures were mapped using remote sensing field studies, categorized into geospatial database, complemented by 16 40 Ar/ 39 Ar ages. Our analysis reveals that developed over five phases, where vent time focus towards central axis forming broad N-S trend, with group concentrated along an regional Makkah-Madinah-Nafud (MMN) line wider spatial dispersion between outwards from there. For whole field, estimate long-term average recurrence rate 2.3 eruptions per 10 kyr assuming Poisson distribution for inter-event times, which indicates would belong global highly active fields. also likely had “flare-up” period 450 300 ka vast majority occurred, 18 kyr. After intense period, rates fell < Based our findings, cumulative probabilities 1.09 16.3% lower upper bounds at least occurring next 100 years somewhere Khaybar, highest within region, particular around Jabal Qidr, Bayda Abyad.