Publications

Emplacement of the Siberian Traps large igneous province (LIP) around 252 Ma coincided with the most profound environmental disruption of the past 500 million years. The enormous volume of the Siberian Traps, its ability to generate greenhouse gases and other volatiles, and a temporal coincidence with extinction all suggest a causal link. Patterns of marine and terrestrial extinction...

Modern operational eruption forecasting methods rely heavily on human judgment in the face of uncertainty and are thus susceptible to myriad cognitive biases and errors by the scientist-forecasters. Recent developments in the behavioral sciences have elucidated cognitive biases across a wide spectrum of human behaviors and found ways to mitigate them. These insights have led to...

South Sister volcano, Oregon Cascade Range, USA, has repeatedly erupted rhyolite since ca. 40 ka. The youngest such eruptions are the ca. 2 ka Rock Mesa and Devils Chain rhyolites, erupted several hundred years apart from two multi-vent complexes separated by 3–6 km. Fe-Mg interdiffusion models of orthopyroxene rims from both rhyolites produce timescales up to several-thousand years, but

This report presents chemical and isotopic compositions of volcanic gases collected from thermal areas within Lassen Volcanic National Park in northern California from 1974 through 2019. As the southernmost volcano in the Cascade Range and designated a very-high-threat volcano by the U.S. Geological Survey, the Lassen Volcanic Center (LVC) requires consistent monitoring to assess...

Syn-eruption geochemical monitoring during volcanic activity is an important component of integrated volcanic monitoring. Volcanoes on the Island of Hawai‘i are primarily monitored by the U.S. Geological Survey’s Hawaiian Volcano Observatory using instrumental networks, field surveys, satellite observations, and petrologic monitoring. In collaboration with the University of Hawaiʻi at...

We investigate the growth of a passive lava lake in Halemaʻumaʻu crater during the December 2020 to May 2021 eruption of Kīlauea volcano, Hawaii. Fed by vents above their surfaces, the formation of passive lava lakes in topographic lows is an important process in the growth of basaltic volcanoes. We captured visible and thermal images during 17 helicopter overflights and applied...

The Hawaiian Volcanoes Supersite was established in 2008 with the goal of making large amounts of volcano monitoring data, especially satellite measurements, freely available at a site of international interest, scientific importance, and impactful natural hazards. The location was chosen because of the long history of volcanological research and innovation on the Island of Hawaiʻi, as...

An analysis of 1,375 volcanoes in the Michoacán-Guanajuato (1,148 volcanoes in a 26,200 square-kilometer area) and Sierra Chichinautzin (227 volcanoes in a 3,500 square-kilometer area) volcanic fields in central Mexico identified patterns in the spatial and temporal distribution of past eruptions. A cluster agglomerative hierarchical method and kernel analysis confirmed that the...

Introduction Western California is home to a variety of volcanic rocks. The locations, ages, and chemical compositions of these volcanic rocks help tell part of the fascinating story of California’s plate tectonic evolution over the past 40 million years. These volcanic rocks are a product of multiple tectonic processes, including subduction of divergent and transform plate boundaries...

This report describes a modeling investigation by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) of hazards in the Toutle and Cowlitz River valleys posed by hypothetical outburst floods from Spirit Lake, Washington. A massive debris avalanche resulting from the collapse of Mount St. Helens’ north flank during the May 18, 1980, eruption blocked Spirit Lake’s natural outlet into the North Fork Toutle...

Since the 1985 Nevado del Ruiz eruption that killed over 23,000 people in Armero, Colombia, risk communication has become central to volcanic crisis management. Despite the development of effective tools and programmes for volcanic risk communication, considerable challenges remain.

Determining accurate and precise ages for Quaternary volcanic centers is essential for reconstructing volcanic field histories, understanding magmatic processes, and assessing potential hazards or risk. Harrat Khaybar, western Saudi Arabia, is one of the youngest and potentially most active volcanic fields on the Arabian plate, has been active since ca. 1.7 Ma, and is characterized by a...