The Toba Caldera has been the site of several large explosive eruptions in the recent geological past, including the world’s largest Pleistocene eruption 74,000 years ago. The major cause of this particular behaviour may be the subduction of the fluid-rich Investigator Fracture Zone directly beneath the continental crust of Sumatra and possible tear of the slab. Here we show a new seismic tomography model, which clearly reveals a complex multilevel plumbing system beneath Toba. Large amounts of volatiles originate in the subducting slab at a depth of ∼150 km, migrate upward and cause active melting in the mantle wedge. The volatile-rich basic magmas accumulate at the base of the crust in a ∼50,000 km³ reservoir. The overheated volatiles continue ascending through the crust and cause melting of the upper crust rocks. This leads to the formation of a shallow crustal reservoir that is directly responsible for the supereruptions.

A detailed 3D image of the Calabro-Ionian subduction system in the central Mediterranean was obtained by means of a seismic tomography, exploiting a large dataset of local earthquakes and computing algorithms able to build a dense grid of measure nodes. Results show that the slab is continuous below the southern sector of the Calabro-Peloritan Arc, but the deformation processes developing at its edges are leading to its progressive narrowing, influencing tectonics and magmatism at the surface, and with possible stress concentration in the tip zones. In the southwest, the deformation occurring at a free slab edge lead to propagation of a vertical lithospheric tear in the overriding plate, which extends along a NW-SE fault system (Aeolian-Tindari-Letojanni) up to about 30 km into the Ionian Sea; further southeast, the lithosphere appears only flexed and not broken yet. In the northeast, the slab seems to break progressively, parallel to the trench. Finally, northwest of Mt. Etna, the tomography highlights low V_P that can be related to an upwelling of deep mantle material likely flowing laterally through a window opened by the complete slab detachment.

Nevado del Ruiz volcano (NRV), Columbia, is one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world and caused the death of 25,000 people in 1985. Using a new algorithm for repeated tomography, we have found a prominent seismic anomaly with high values of the Vp/Vs ratio at depths of 2–5 km below the surface, which is associated with a shallow magma reservoir. The amplitude and shape of this anomaly changed during the current phase of unrest which began in 2010. We interpret these changes as due to the ascent of gas bubbles through magma and to degassing of the reservoir. In 2011–2014, most of this gas escaped through permeable roof rocks, feeding surface fumarole activity and leading to a gradual decrease of the Vp/Vs ratio in the reservoir. This trend was reversed in 2015–2016 due to replenishment of the reservoir by a new batch of volatile-rich magma likely to sustain further volcanic activity. It is argued that the recurring “breathing” of the shallow reservoir is the main cause of current eruptions at NRV.