Kilauea has produced eruptions with high fountaining (>400m) activity in 1959, 1960, 1969(-1974) and 1983-1986(-2007) as well as other summit (1971, 1974, 1982) and flank eruptions characterized by low fountaining activity. This study considers the eruption dynamics and products of the best-documented examples of these eruptive episodes. The immediate goal is to develop integrated models for the full range of styles and intensities of Hawaiian explosive volcanism, making it possible to compare activity there with other well documented Strombolian and basaltic subplinian eruptions and to create a new self-consistent classification for their pyroclastic products. The work will be divided into six sub-projects as follows: re-analysis of movie/video footage, new isopach and stratigraphic studies, grain size/componentry, microtextures, pre-eruptive volatile analysis, magma rheology and modeling.
Intellectual merit: This work will expand understanding of how basaltic systems erupt in Hawaiian (and Strombolian fashion) and enhance classifications of these types of explosive events by using the best documented recent examples from the volcano. His work is expected to improve classification of less well-documented basaltic eruptions, where eruptive style and intensity must be inferred from the pyroclastic deposits. This work will ultimately aid in forecasting future explosive eruptions at Kilauea and other analogous basaltic systems.
Broader Impacts: An understanding of the factors promoting diversity of basaltic explosive eruptions is of fundamental importance in order to improve prediction of the behaviors of these volcanoes and to assess hazards of future explosive events at basaltic volcanoes. Kilauea is the site of a large and growing volcano-tourism operations and there is a public need both for better knowledge of the volcano's behavior and improved forecasting of the likely course of future eruptions. Results will be widely disseminated via the Internet using linked web sites hosted by Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and University of Hawaii. Additionally, the project will bring together one graduate and several undergraduate students into research contact with a team of established researchers comprising 4 sub-disciplines in volcanology.
A series on eruptions began at K?lauea, Hawaii in March 2008 and produced the smallest explosive deposits known in the world. Very different to the classical explosions at Stromboli volcano, K?lauea’s ‘twin’, they were each triggered by a collapse of the sides of the newly developing crater. The preservation potential of products of such eruptions is typically low; it is generally impossible to measure the ‘footprint’ of such eruptions from their permanent exposures. This study of deposits in ‘real-time’ has required us to revise ways to classify explosive eruptions to include small yet potentially dangerous eruptions. The economic cost of these very small eruptions is significant and was out of proportion to their magnitude. A significant part of Hawai‘i Volcanoes National Park has remained closed since April 2008, and two formal evacuations of more than 2000 people have occurred. Eruptions of this magnitude therefore constitute a significant risk at K?lauea and elsewhere because of their high frequency and the growing number of ‘volcano tourists’ visiting basaltic volcanoes. An earlier set of eruptions in 1969 at Maunu Ulu, also on K?lauea, offers the chance to understand a classical Hawaiian fountaining eruption very different from the 2008 explosions. The 1969 eruption began from a 4 km long fissure as low ‘curtains’ of incandescent particles and gas but subsequently focused on Mauna Ulu, growing in intensity to reach exceptional fountain heights over 500 meters high. The first eruption, on May 24, 1969, illustrates a misconception that explosive eruptions always produce thicker deposits downwind from the volcano. The deposits of May 24, 1969 show that this eruption balanced at the cusp between explosive and effusive activity. The eruption permanently re-routed the critical transport corridor of Chain of Craters Road. Studying the patterns of gas bubbles in the 1969 eruption products enabled us to determine the key factors that drive transitions between weak low fountaining eruption, which a principally a tourist attraction and powerful high fountains which are much more dangerous. Serendipitously we were able to apply this research to the low fountaining eruption from the Kamoamoa fissure in March 2011, working alongside our US Geological Survey colleagues at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. In new research we hope to use this knowledge in real time to track the course of the next fountaining eruption at this super-active volcano.
