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Post-eruptive inflation of Okmok Volcano, Alaska, from InSAR, 2008–2014

Okmok, a ~10-km wide caldera that occupies most of the northeastern end of Umnak Island, is one of the most active volcanoes in the Aleutian arc. The most recent eruption at Okmok during July-August 2008 was by far its largest and most explosive since at least the early 19th century. We investigate post-eruptive magma supply and storage at the volcano during 2008–2014 by analyzing all available sy
Authors
Feifei Qu, Zhong Lu, Michael P. Poland, Jeffrey T. Freymueller, Qin Zhang, Hyung-Sup Jung

Dome growth at Mount Cleveland, Aleutian Arc, quantified by time-series TerraSAR-X imagery

Synthetic aperture radar imagery is widely used to study surface deformation induced by volcanic activity; however, it is rarely applied to quantify the evolution of lava domes, which is important for understanding hazards and magmatic system characteristics. We studied dome formation associated with eruptive activity at Mount Cleveland, Aleutian Volcanic Arc, in 2011–2012 using TerraSAR-X imagery
Authors
Teng Wang, Michael P. Poland, Zhong Lu

The 2014-2015 Pāhoa lava flow crisis at Kīlauea Volcano, Hawai‘i: Disaster avoided and lessons learned

Lava flow crises are nothing new on the Island of Hawai‘i, where their destructive force has been demonstrated repeatedly over the past several hundred years. The 2014–2015 Pāhoa lava flow crisis, however, was unique in terms of its societal impact and volcanological characteristics. Despite low effusion rates, a long-lived lava flow whose extent reached 20 km (the longest at Kīlauea Volcano in th
Authors
Michael P. Poland, Tim R. Orr, James P. Kauahikaua, Steven R. Brantley, Janet L. Babb, Matthew R. Patrick, Christina A. Neal, Kyle R. Anderson, Loren Antolik, Matthew K. Burgess, Tamar Elias, Steven Fuke, Pauline Fukunaga, Ingrid A. Johanson, Marian Kagimoto, Kevan P. Kamibayashi, Lopaka Lee, Asta Miklius, William Million, Cyril J. Moniz, Paul G. Okubo, Andrew Sutton, T. Jane Takahashi, Weston A. Thelen, Willam Tollett, Frank A. Trusdell

Constraints on the source parameters of low-frequency earthquakes on the San Andreas Fault

Low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) are small repeating earthquakes that occur in conjunction with deep slow slip. Like typical earthquakes, LFEs are thought to represent shear slip on crustal faults, but when compared to earthquakes of the same magnitude, LFEs are depleted in high-frequency content and have lower corner frequencies, implying longer duration. Here we exploit this difference to estima
Authors
Amanda M. Thomas, Gregory C. Beroza, David R. Shelly

At the foot of the smoking mountains: The 2014 scientific investigations in the Islands of the Four Mountains

An interdisciplinary research team conducted archaeological, geological, and biological investigations in the Islands of the Four Mountains, Alaska during the summer of 2014 as part of a three-year project to study long-term geological and ecological patterns and processes with respect to human settlement. Researchers investigated three archaeological sites on Chuginadak Island (SAM-0014, SAM-0016
Authors
Virginia Hatfield, Kale Bruner, Dixie West, Arkady Savinetsky, Olga Krylovich, Bulat Khasanov, Dmitry Vasyukov, Zhanna Antipushina, Mitsuru Okuno, Susan Crockford, Kirsten Nicolaysen, Breanyn MacInnes, Lyman Persico, Pavel Izbekov, Christina A. Neal, Thomas Bartlett, Lydia Loopesko, Anne Fulton

Dimensionless erosion laws for cohesive sediment

A method of achieving a dimensionless collapse of erosion-rate data for cohesive sediments is proposed and shown to work well for data collected in flume-erosion tests on mixtures of sand and mud (silt plus clay sized particles) for a wide range of mud fraction. The data collapse corresponds to a dimensional erosion law of the form E∼(τ−τc)mE∼(τ−τc)m, where EE is erosion rate, ττ is shear stress,
Authors
Joseph S. Walder

Monogenetic volcanoes fed by interconnected dikes and sills in the Hopi Buttes volcanic field, Navajo Nation, USA

Although monogenetic volcanic fields pose hazards to major cities worldwide, their shallow magma feeders (<500 m depth) are rarely exposed and, therefore, poorly understood. Here, we investigate exposures of dikes and sills in the Hopi Buttes volcanic field, Arizona, to shed light on the nature of its magma feeder system. Shallow exposures reveal a transition zone between intrusion and eruption wi
Authors
James D. Muirhead, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Giuseppe Re, James D. L. White, Michael H. Ort

Geochemical characterization and dating of R tephra, a post-glacial marker bed in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington, U.S.A.

The oldest postglacial lapilli–ash tephra recognized in sedimentary records surrounding Mount Rainier (Washington State, USA) is R tephra, a very early Holocene deposit that acts as an important stratigraphic and geochronologic marker bed. This multidisciplinary study incorporates tephrostratigraphy, radiocarbon dating, petrography, and electron microprobe analysis to characterize R tephra. Tephra
Authors
Mary Samolczyk, James W. Vallance, Joel Cubley, Gerald Osborn, Douglas H. Clark

Apatite fission-track evidence for regional exhumation in the subtropical Eocene, block faulting, and localized fluid flow in east-central Alaska

The origin and antiquity of the subdued topography of the Yukon–Tanana Upland (YTU), the physiographic province between the Denali and Tintina faults, are unresolved questions in the geologic history of interior Alaska and adjacent Yukon. We present apatite fission-track (AFT) results for 33 samples from the 2300 km2 western Fortymile district in the YTU in Alaska and propose an exhumation model t
Authors
Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, Charles R. Bacon, Paul B. O'Sullivan, Warren C. Day

Long period seismicity and very long period infrasound driven by shallow magmatic degassing at Mount Pagan, Mariana Islands

Long period (LP) seismicity and very long period infrasound (iVLP) were recorded during continuous degassing from Mount Pagan, Mariana Islands, in July 2013 to January 2014. The frequency content of the LP and iVLP events and delay times between the two arrivals were remarkably stable and indicate nearly co-located sources. Using phase-weighted stacking over similar events to dampen noise, we find

Authors
John J. Lyons, Matthew M. Haney, Cynthia A. Werner, Peter J. Kelly, Matthew R. Patrick, Christoph Kern, Frank A. Trusdell

Tomographic image of a seismically active volcano: Mammoth Mountain, California

High-resolution tomographic P wave, S wave, and VP/VS velocity structure models are derived for Mammoth Mountain, California, using phase data from the Northern California Seismic Network and a temporary deployment of broadband seismometers. An anomalous volume (5.1 × 109 to 5.9 × 1010m3) of low P and low S wave velocities is imaged beneath Mammoth Mountain, extending from near the surface to a de
Authors
Phillip B. Dawson, Bernard A. Chouet, Andrew M. Pitt

Radiocarbon dating of silica sinter deposits in shallow drill cores from the Upper Geyser Basin, Yellowstone National Park

To explore the timing of hydrothermal activity at the Upper Geyser Basin (UGB) in Yellowstone National Park, we obtained seven new accelerator mass spectrometry (AMS) radiocarbon 14C ages of carbonaceous material trapped within siliceous sinter. Five samples came from depths of 15–152 cm within the Y-1 well, and two samples were from well Y-7 (depths of 24 cm and 122 cm). These two wells, at Black
Authors
Jacob B. Lowenstern, Shaul Hurwitz, John McGeehin