Publications

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Introduction Every year in the United States, natural hazards threaten lives and livelihoods, resulting in thousands of casualties and billions of dollars in damage. The U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) Natural Hazards Mission Area works with many partners to monitor, assess, and research a wide range of natural hazards, including earthquakes and volcanic eruptions. These efforts aim to...

Between 38.5 ka cal BP and 32.4 ka cal BP, a dacitic Volcanic Explosivity Index 5 eruption at Misti volcano emplaced the Sacarosa tephra-fall deposit. Its biotite phenocrysts, fine grain size, scarce lithics, and abundant loose crystals characterize the deposit at locations sampled. The eruption’s ~ 800 °C magma rose rapidly from ~ 10 km depth, culminating in a Plinian eruption which...

The science of volcanology advances disproportionately during exceptionally large or well-observed eruptions. The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano (Hawai‘i) was its most impactful in centuries, involving an outpouring of more than one cubic kilometer of basalt, a magnitude 7 flank earthquake, and the volcano’s largest summit collapse since at least the nineteenth century. Eruptive...

Subduction transports volatiles between Earth’s mantle, crust, and atmosphere, ultimately creating a habitable Earth. We use isotopes to track carbon from subduction to outgassing along the Aleutian-Alaska Arc. We find substantial along-strike variations in the isotopic composition of volcanic gases, explained by different recycling efficiencies of subducting carbon to the atmosphere via...

During explosive volcanic eruptions, volcanic ash is ejected into the atmosphere, impacting aircraft safety and downwind communities. These volcanic clouds tend to be dominated by fine ash (

In the past century, most eruptions of Steamboat Geyser in Yellowstone National Park's Norris Geyser Basin were mainly clustered in three episodes: 1961–1969, 1982–1984, and ongoing since 2018. These eruptive episodes resulted in extensive disturbance to surrounding trees. To characterize tree response over time as an indicator of geyser activity adjustments to climate variability...

Rapid and simple estimation of the mass eruption rate (MER) from column height is essential for real-time volcanic hazard management and reconstruction of past explosive eruptions. Using 134 eruptive events from the new Independent Volcanic Eruption Source Parameter Archive (IVESPA, v1.0), we explore empirical MER-height relationships for four measures of column height: spreading level...

Kīlauea volcano, on the Island of Hawai‘i, is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Over the past four decades it has released large amounts of volcanic gases and aerosols which form volcanic air pollution known as ‘vog’. Communities downwind of Kīlauea have been chronically or episodically exposed to this potentially harmful air pollution and have raised concerns about the...

Differential Optical Absorption Spectroscopy (DOAS) is commonly used to measure gas emissions from volcanoes. DOAS instruments measure the absorption of solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation scattered in the atmosphere by sulfur dioxide (SO2) and other trace gases contained in volcanic plumes. The standard spectral retrieval methods assume that all measured light comes from behind the plume...

Basaltic caldera collapses are episodic, producing very-long-period (VLP) earthquakes up to Mw 5.4, with prolific inter-collapse (between collapses) volcano-tectonic (VT) seismicity. During the 2018 caldera collapse of Kīlauea Volcano, VT seismicity ceased following each collapse, and then accelerated to a quasi-steady rate prior to the next collapse, marking a temporal pattern distinct...

A variety of geophysical hazards (e.g., volcanic activity, earthquakes, mass movements, marine storms, bolides) and anthropogenic sources (e.g., chemical and nuclear explosions, mining blasts, rocket launches) can release energy as mechanical waves in the ground, ocean, and atmosphere (Arrowsmith et al., 2010; Campus and Christie, 2009). Due to the mechanical coupling between a planetary...