LAUSR

Assessing volcanic hazard in regions of distributed volcanism is challenging because of the uncertain location of future vents. A statistical‐mechanical strategy to forecast such locations was recently proposed: here, we further develop and test it with analog models. We stress a gelatin block laterally and with surface excavations, and observe air‐filled crack trajectories. We use the observed surface arrivals to sample the distributions of parameters describing the stress state of the gelatin block, combining deterministic crack trajectory simulations with a Monte Carlo approach. While the individual stress parameters remain unconstrained, we effectively retrieve their ratio and successfully forecast the arrival points of subsequent cracks.