Interdisciplinary studies of eruption at Chaitén volcano, Chile

High-silica rhyolite magma fuels Earth's largest and most explosive eruptions. Recurrence intervals for such highly explosive eruptions are in the 100- to 100,000-year time range, and there have been few direct observations of such eruptions and their immediate impacts. Consequently, there was keen interest within the volcanology community when the first large eruption of high-silica rhyolite since that of Alaska's Novarupta volcano in 1912 began on 1 May 2008 at Chaitén volcano, southern Chile, a 3-kilometer-diameter caldera volcano with a prehistoric record of rhyolite eruptions [Naranjo and Stern, 2004semi; Servicio Nacional de Geología y Minería (SERNAGEOMIN), 2008semi; Carn et al., 2009; Castro and Dingwell, 2009; Lara, 2009; Muñoz et al., 2009]. Vigorous explosions occurred through 8 May 2008, after which explosive activity waned and a new lava dome was extruded.