Publications

Ground surface displacement (GSD) in large calderas is often interpreted as resulting from magma intrusion at depth. Recent advances in geodetic measurements of GSD, notably interferometric synthetic aperture radar, reveal complex and multifaceted deformation patterns that often require complex source models to explain the observed GSD. Although hydrothermal fluids have been discussed as...

The late Wisconsin Missoula floods are Earth's largest known discharges of fresh water. They carved Washington's Channeled Scabland--made famous by J H. Bretz's writings in the 1920s to 1950s--and deposited sporadic huge gravel bars in the Scab-lands and Columbia valley. Since the late 1970s the great floods have been shown to number several score and to have been released as gigantic...

Diffuse CO2 efflux near the Ukinrek Maars, two small volcanic craters that formed in 1977 in a remote part of the Alaska Peninsula, was investigated using accumulation chamber measurements. High CO2 efflux, in many places exceeding 1000 g m−2 d−1, was found in conspicuous zones of plant damage or kill that cover 30,000–50,000 m2 in area. Total diffuse CO2 emission was estimated at 21–44...

During the past 30 years, more than 100 airplanes have inadvertently flown through clouds of volcanic ash from erupting volcanoes. Such encounters have caused millions of dollars in damage to the aircraft and have endangered the lives of tens of thousands of passengers. In a few severe cases, total engine failure resulted when ash was ingested into turbines and coating turbine blades...

Soil temperature and moisture are important factors that control many ecosystem processes. However, interactions between soil thermal and hydrological processes are not adequately understood in cold regions, where the frozen soil, fire disturbance, and soil drainage play important roles in controlling interactions among these processes. These interactions were investigated with a new...

We analyze mass-flow tsunami generation for selected areas within the Aleutian arc of Alaska using results from numerical simulation of hypothetical but plausible mass-flow sources such as submarine landslides and volcanic debris avalanches. The Aleutian arc consists of a chain of volcanic mountains, volcanic islands, and submarine canyons, surrounded by a low-relief continental shelf...

Emmons Lake Volcanic Center (ELVC) on the lower Alaskan Peninsula is one of the largest and most diverse volcanic centers in the Aleutian Arc. Since the Middle Pleistocene, eruption of ~ 350 km3 of basalt through rhyolite has produced a 30 km, arc front chain of nested calderas and overlapping stratovolcanoes. ELVC has experienced as many as five major caldera-forming eruptions, the most...

During volcanic eruptions, volcanic ash transport and dispersion models (VATDs) are used to forecast the location and movement of ash clouds over hours to days in order to define hazards to aircraft and to communities downwind. Those models use input parameters, called “eruption source parameters”, such as plume height H, mass eruption rate Ṁ, duration D, and the mass fraction m63 of...

Lava lakes experience filling, circulation, and often drainage depending upon the style of activity and location of the vent. Features formed by these processes have proved difficult to document due to dangerous conditions during the eruption, inaccessibility, and destruction of features during lake drainage. Kilauea Iki lava lake, Kilauea, Hawai'i, preserves many such features, because...

We investigate the deformation of Mauna Loa and Kllauea volcanoes, Hawai'i, by exploiting the advanced differential Synthetic Aperture Radar Interferometry (InSAR) technique referred to as the Small BAseline Subset (SBAS) algorithm. In particular, we present time series of line-of-sight (LOS) displacements derived from SAR data acquired by the ASAR instrument, on board the ENVISAT...

During one week (28 March–4 April 1982), three powerful explosive eruptions (VEI 5) of El Chichón Volcano caused the worst volcanic disaster in Mexico's recorded history. Pyroclastic flows and surges obliterated nine villages, killing about 2,000 people, and ashfalls downwind posed socio–economic hardships for many thousands of inhabitants of the States of Chiapas and Tabasco. The...

Andean volcanism occurs within the Andean Volcanic Arc (AVA), which is the product of subduction of the Nazca Plate and Antarctica Plates beneath the South America Plate. The AVA is Earth's longest but discontinuous continental-margin volcanic arc, which consists of four distinct segments: Northern Volcanic Zone, Central Volcanic Zone, Southern Volcanic Zone, and Austral Volcanic Zone...