Publications

Microtextures of juvenile pyroclasts from Kīlauea’s (Hawai‘i) early A.D. 2008 explosive activity record the velocity and depth of convection within the basaltic magma-filled conduit. We use X-ray microtomography (μXRT) to document the spatial distribution of bubbles. We find small bubbles (radii from 5 μm to 70 μm) in a halo surrounding larger millimeter-size bubbles. This suggests that...

Swamp Lake, Yosemite National Park, is the only known lake in California containing long sequences of varved sediments and thus has the potential to provide a high-resolution record of climate variability. This preliminary analysis of the diatom assemblages from a 947-cm-long composite sediment core (freeze core FZ02–05; 0–67 cm, Livingstone core 02–05; 53–947 cm) shows that the lake has...

A new database of volcanic fatalities is presented and analysed, covering the period 1600 to 2010 AD. Data are from four sources: the Smithsonian Institution, Witham (2005), CRED EM-DAT and Munich RE. The data were combined and formatted, with a weighted average fatality figure used where more than one source reports an event; the former two databases were weighted twice as strongly as...

A 360-km-long belt of more than 1,400 meter-sized granitic bedrock basins occurs at 1,200 to 2,500 m elevation on the west flank of the Sierra Nevada. The circular, smooth basins are 0.7 to 1.7 min diameter and are commonly 50 to 1,000 liters in volume. They are man-made as shown by their restricted size and elevation range, uniform circular shape, distinct basin shapes in different...

An accurate digital elevation model (DEM) is a critical data set for characterizing the natural landscape, monitoring natural hazards, and georeferencing satellite imagery. The ideal interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) configuration for DEM production is a single-pass two-antenna system. Repeat-pass single-antenna satellite InSAR imagery, however, also can be used to...

Biogenic opal, organic carbon, organic matter stable isotope, and trace metal data from a well-dated, high-resolution jumbo piston core (EW0408–85JC; 59° 33.3′N, 144° 9.21′W, 682 m water depth) recovered from the northern Gulf of Alaska continental slope reveal changes in productivity and nutrient utilization over the last 17,000 years. Maximum values of opal concentration (∼10%) occur...

Volcanic eruptions often spew fine ash high into the atmosphere, where it is carried downwind, forming long ash clouds that disrupt air traffic and pose a hazard to air travel. To mitigate such hazards, the community studying ash hazards must assess risk of ash ingestion for any flight path and provide robust and accurate forecasts of volcanic ash dispersal. We provide a quantitative and...

Crystal zoning as well as temperature and pressure estimates from phenocryst phase equilibria are used to constrain the architecture of the intermediate-sized magmatic system (some tens of km3) of Volcán Quizapu, Chile, and to document the textural and compositional effects of magma mixing. In contrast to most arc magma systems, where multiple episodes of open-system behavior obscure the...

The seismicity of Popocatépetl is dominated by long-period and very-long period signals associated with hydrothermal processes and magmatic degassing. We model the source mechanism of repetitive long-period signals in the 0.4–2 s band from a 15-station broadband network by stacking long-period events with similar waveforms to improve the signal-to-noise ratio. The data are well fitted by...

The Keanakākoʻi Tephra at Kīlauea Volcano has previously been interpreted by some as the product of a caldera-forming eruption in 1790 CE. Our study, however, finds stratigraphic and 14C evidence that the tephra instead results from numerous eruptions throughout a 300-year period between about 1500 and 1800. The stratigraphic evidence includes: (1) as many as six pure lithic ash beds...

Beginning in July 2003 and lasting through September 2003, the Norris Geyser Basin in Yellowstone National Park exhibited an unusual increase in ground temperature and hydrothermal activity. Using hidden Markov model theory, we identify over five million high-frequency (>15 Hz) seismic events observed at a temporary seismic station deployed in the basin in response to the increase in...

Deposits from episode 1 of the 1969–1974 Mauna Ulu eruption of Kīlauea provide an exceptional opportunity to study processes of low intensity Hawaiian fissure fountains. Episode 1 lava flows passed through dense forest that had little impact on flow dynamics; in contrast, the pattern of spatter preservation was strongly influenced by the forest (through the formation of tree molds) and...