Publications

The catastrophic explosion of Mount Lamington volcano, Papua New Guinea on January 21, 1951 produced a devastating pyroclastic density current (PDC) that knocked down dense tropical rainforest over an area of 230 km2 and killed approximately 3000 people. We present results of a field reinvestigation of the 1951 PDC deposit combined with an analysis of the available photographs and eyewitness accou

During the 2005 summer field season, geologists Michelle Coombs, Christina Neal, and Jessica Larsen from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks and the U.S. Geological survey, Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO) conducted fieldwork on Little Sitkin Island in the western Aleutians of Alaska. The primary purpose of the fieldwork was to install geophysical networks for volcano monitoring. As part of this e

The El Tatio geothermal field in the Chilean Altiplano contains hydrothermal silica sinter deposits overlaying glacial and volcanic units, providing an opportunity to constrain the timing of deglaciation and volcanic activity in an area with sparse absolute chronologies. We obtained 51 new radiocarbon ages and δ13C values on the organic material trapped in these sinter deposits. Based on the δ13C

The weather of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica, the largest ice‐free region of the Antarctica, has been continuously monitored since 1985 with currently 14 operational meteorological stations distributed throughout the valleys. Because climate is based on a 30‐year record of weather, this is the first study to truly define the contemporary climate of the McMurdo Dry Valleys. Mean air temperatu

Mount Cleveland is one of Alaska's most active volcanoes, yet little is known about the magmatic system driving persistent and dynamic volcanic activity. Volcanic gas and melt inclusion (MI) data from 2016 were combined to investigate shallow magmatic processes. SO2 emission rates were between 166 and 324 t/day and the H2O/SO2 was 600 ± 53, whereas CO2 and H2S were below detection. Olivine‐, clino

In the past two decades, the U.S. Geological Survey and the National Park Service have studied hydrothermal activity across the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field (YPVF) to improve the understanding of the magmatic-hydrothermal system and to provide a baseline for detecting future anomalous activity. In 2017 and 2018 we sampled water and gas over a large area in the southwest YPVF and used Landsat

Kīlauea Volcano, on the Island of Hawaiʻi, has had a prominent role in the science of volcanology, and a long history of generating new insights into how volcanoes operate (Tilling et al. 2014; Garcia 2015). Native Hawaiians shared ideas on the behavior of the volcano with early Western visitors to Kīlauea, addressing the basic geometry of magma supply and transport (Ellis 1825; Bishop 1827). Th

The 2018 lower East Rift Zone eruption of Kīlauea (Hawai‘i) marked a dramatic change in the volcano’s 35-year-long rift zone eruption. The collapse of the middle East Rift Zone vent Pu‘u ‘Ō‘ō was followed by one of the volcano’s most voluminous eruptions in 500 years. Over the course of this 3-month eruption, the draining of summit-stored magma led to near-daily collapses of a portion of the calde

Mount St. Helens was once enjoyed for its serene beauty and was considered one of America’s most majestic volcanoes because of its perfect cone shape, similar to Japan’s beloved Mount Fuji. Nearby residents assumed that the mountain was solid and enduring. That perception changed during the early spring of 1980. Then, on May 18, 1980, following 2 months of earthquakes and small explosions, the vol

In August 2010, Sinabung volcano began erupting after more than a thousand years of dormancy. Following several weeks of phreatic eruptions, the eruptions ceased and Sinabung entered what became an inter-eruptive period of dominantly seismic unrest. While standard equations for understanding the size of an earthquake (local magnitude (ML), coda magnitude (MC), and seismic energy release (ER)) have

Satellite monitoring of volcanic activity typically includes four primary observations: (1) deformation and surface change, (2) gas emissions, (3) thermal anomalies, and (4) ash plumes. These phenomena are imaged by remote sensing data that span the electromagnetic spectrum, from microwave to ultraviolet energy and including visible and infrared wavelengths. The primary uses of satellite data in v

No abstract available.