Revisiting Lava Flow Simple Models

Simple models relating the final dimensions of a lava flow to eruption parameters an lava rheology were used extensively in the 1980's but have fallen out of use in the terrestrial vocanology community. However, in the planetary volcanology community these models have had a resurgence of utilization, especially in response to the availability of high resolution topographic data. In order to assess the uncertianties in these model results, it is important to revisit the underlying assumptions, understand the issues that have led terrestrial volcanologists to largely abandon these models, and search for more robust models that do not require inputs unobtainable for planetary lava flows.