ERUPT: new approaches to volcanic hazard prediction

1
ERUPT new approaches to volcanic hazard
prediction

• Our objective in ERUPT is to work at a European
  level to provide new methodologies to relate the
  characteristics of volcanic rocks to the
  conditions leading to their eruption

2
Volcano research - from a hazard perspective

• How big
• How explosive
• How frequent

3
Traditional approaches

• Geophysical - real time picture (seismology,
  gravity, shape change)
• Volcanology- past activity (size, type style of
  eruption)

4
Our approach

• Type, style and frequency of eruption are
  predicated by magma evolution
• Function of subvolcanic conditions (magma
  composition, pressure and temperature, magma
  storage architecture, and processes -
  crystallisation, melting, mixing)
• These are recorded in the rocks themselves

Illustration by Gary Hincks
5
What we need to understand about magma systems
6
Elements of ERUPT

• Textural characteristics constrain rock
  evolution
• Crystals record process through core-rim chemical
  variations
• Crystals can yield rate information
  (crystallisation, residence, mixing)

7
(No Transcript)
8
Methodology

• 1. Study stratigraphically well-constrained
  samples of rocks of known eruption age and
  establish general patterns of changes in bulk
  magma composition through time

9

• 2. Within that context, detailed studies of
  individual rocks at a mineral scale
• Determine P,T
• Identify populations
• Date crystals

10

• 3. Innovative microanalysis of minerals and
  glasses
• Melt evolution
• Recharge and contamination events
• Growth rates

11
Textural quantification
12
Crystal Stratigraphy

• Layers (P, T, X)
• Unconformities
• Melt inclusions
• Isotopic zoning
• Diffusion profiles

13
Timescales I

• Short-lived isotopes give timescales of
  crystallisation

(230Th/232Th)
(238U/232Th)
14
Timescales II

• Diffusional modeling give residence times

500 mm
Work by Dan Morgan
15
(No Transcript)
16
Vesuvius magma chamber evolution
512
17
Who are we?

• Durham University (Dept. of Earth Sciences)
• Florence University (Dept. of Earth Sciences)
• Göttingen University (Geoscience Centre)
• Naples University and Vesuvius Observatory
• Leeds University (School of Earth Sciences)
• Barcelona Institute of Earth Sciences, CSIC
• Dublin University College (Dept. of Geology)

18
The End