Publications
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California’s exposure to volcanic hazards
The potential for damaging earthquakes, landslides, floods, tsunamis, and wildfires is widely recognized in California. The same cannot be said for volcanic eruptions, despite the fact that they occur in the state about as frequently as the largest earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault. At least ten eruptions have taken place in the past 1,000 years, and future volcanic eruptions are inevitable.The
Authors
Margaret Mangan, Jessica Ball, Nathan Wood, Jamie L. Jones, Jeff Peters, Nina Abdollahian, Laura Dinitz, Sharon Blankenheim, Johanna Fenton, Cynthia Pridmore
By
Volcano Hazards Program, Volcano Science Center, California Volcano Observatory, Clear Lake Volcanic Field, Coso Volcanic Field, Lassen Volcanic Center, Long Valley Caldera, Mammoth Mountain, Medicine Lake, Mono Lake Volcanic Field, Mono-Inyo Craters, Mount Shasta, Salton Buttes, Soda Lakes, Ubehebe Craters
On the eruption age and provenance of the Old Crow tephra
Tephrochronology is used to correlate and reconstruct geographically disparate sedimentary records of changing environment, climate, and landscape throughout geologic time. Single tephra layers represent isochronous markers across broad regions, thus accurate and precise radiometric constraints on the timing of eruption are critical to their utility. The Old Crow tephra is found throughout eastern
Authors
Seth D. Burgess, Matthew Coble, Jorge A. Vazquez, Michelle L. Coombs, Kristi L. Wallace
Unravelling the complexity of magma plumbing at Mount St. Helens: A new trace element partitioning scheme for amphibole
Volcanoes at subduction zones reside above complex magma plumbing systems, where individual magmatic components may originate and interact at a range of pressures. Because whole-rock compositions of subduction zone magmas are the integrated result of processes operating throughout the entire plumbing system, processes such as mixing, homogenisation and magma assembly during shallow storage can ove
Authors
Madeleine C. S. Humphreys, George F. Cooper, Jing Zhang, Matthew W. Loewen, Adam J. R. Kent, Colin G. Macpherson, Jon P. Davidson
Groundwater inflow toward a preheated volcanic conduit: Application to the 2018 eruption at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai’i
The many successes in volcano forecasting over the past several decades owe mainly to pattern recognition, both in monitoring data and the geologic record. During the early stages of the 2018 Kīlauea eruption, the conceptual model of Stearns (1925), based on the explosive 1924 Kīlauea eruption, was highly influential. This model postulates that explosions are triggered by liquid-water inflow int
Authors
Paul A. Hsieh, Steven E. Ingebritsen
Field volcanology: A tribute to the distinguished career of Don Swanson
Don Swanson has profoundly influenced generations of volcanologists and has made major contributions to our understanding of both silicic and basaltic volcanic systems. He provides an exceptional example of how a gifted scientist can develop entirely new paradigms related to large-scale problems on the basis of decades of study, as exemplified by his work on the emplacement of flood basalts, monit
Products, processes, and implications of Keanakāko‘i volcanism, Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i
The Keanakāko‘i Tephra offers an exceptional window into the explosive portion of Kīlauea’s recent past. Once thought to be the products of a single eruption, the deposits instead formed through a wide range of pyroclastic activity during an ~300 yr period following the collapse of the modern caldera in ca. 1500 CE. No single shallow conduit or vent system prevailed during this period, and most of
Authors
Don Swanson, Bruce F. Houghton
Dikes in the Koaʻe fault system, and the Koaʻe-east rift zone structural grain at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaii
Two small scoria vents were discovered in the Koa‘e fault system, an extensional regime connecting the east and southwest rift zones of Kīlauea that was previously considered to be noneruptive. The chemical composition of the scoria suggests an early to middle nineteenth-century age. The vents prove that magma can intrude several kilometers into the central part of the Koa‘e fault system from the
Authors
Donald A. Swanson, Richard S. Fiske, Carl Thornber, Michael P. Poland
Communication strategy of the U.S. Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory during the lava-flow crisis of 2014–2015, Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii
In 2014–2015, a slow-moving pāhoehoe lava flow from the remote Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō vent on Kīlauea Volcano advanced 20 km into populated areas of the Puna District on the Island of Hawai‘i. The staff of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) Hawaiian Volcano Observatory (HVO) mobilized their resources to closely monitor the flow and provide up-to-date information to the Hawai‘i County Civil Defense (HCCD) agen
Authors
Steven Brantley, James P. Kauahikaua, Janet Babb, Tim R. Orr, Matthew R. Patrick, Michael P. Poland, Frank A. Trusdell, Darryl Oliveira
Lava lake thermal pattern classification using self organizing maps and relationships to eruption processes at Kilauea Volcano, Hawaii
Kīlauea Volcano’s active summit lava lake poses hazards to downwind residents and over 1.6 million Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park visitors each year. The lava lake surface is dynamic; crustal plates separated by incandescent cracks move across the lake as magma circulates below. We hypothesize that these dynamic thermal patterns are related to changes in other volcanic processes, such that sequen
Authors
Amy M Burzynski, Steve W. Anderson, Kerryn Morrison, Matthew R. Patrick, Tim R. Orr, Weston Thelen
Controls on lava lake level at Halema‘uma‘u Crater, Kīlauea Volcano
The height of the lava column is a fundamental measure of open-vent volcanic activity, but little continuous long-term data exist to understand this parameter. The recent (2008-2018) lava lake activity at the summit of Kīlauea Volcano provides a unique opportunity to track and understand the processes that control lava level over timescales ranging from minutes to years. We review recently publi
Authors
Matthew R. Patrick, Donald A. Swanson, Tim R. Orr
Space-based imaging radar studies of U.S. volcanoes
The arrival of space-based imaging radar as a revolutionary land-surface mapping and monitoring tool little more than a quarter century ago enabled a spate of innovative volcano research worldwide. Soon after launch of European Space Agency’s ERS-1 spacecraft in 1991, the U.S. Geological Survey began SAR and InSAR studies of volcanoes in the Aleutian and Cascades arcs, in Hawai’i, and elsewhere in
Authors
Daniel Dzurisin, Zhong Lu, Michael P. Poland, Charles W. Wicks
Lava flow morphology at an erupting andesitic stratovolcano: A satellite perspective on El Reventador, Ecuador
Lava flows pose a significant hazard to infrastructure and property located close to volcanoes, and understanding how flows advance is necessary to manage volcanic hazard during eruptions. Compared to low-silica basaltic flows, flows of andesitic composition are infrequently erupted and so relatively few studies of their characteristics and behaviour exist. We use El Reventador, Ecuador as a targe
Authors
David W. D. Arnold, Juliet Biggs, Hannah R. Dietterich, Silvia Vallejo Vargas, Geoffrey Wadge, Patricia Mothes