Publications

Near midnight of March 28, 1982, El Chichón — an obscure, little-studied volcano in Chiapas State, southern Mexico — violently erupted, terrifying local villagers and prompting a confused, poorly executed evacuation. For the next five days, the volcano remained intermittently but only weakly active, so many evacuees were allowed to return to their homes. Then, on April 3 and 4, two...

Detailed diatom and silicoflagellates records in three cores from the offshore region of southern Oregon to central California reveal the evolution of the northern part of the California Current during the past 12,000 yr. The early Holocene, prior to ∼ 9 ka, was characterized by relatively warm sea surface temperatures (SST), owing to enhanced northerly flow of the subtropical waters...

Thirty-seven new K–Ar ages from West Maui volcano, Hawai‘i, are used to define the waning stages of shield growth and a brief episode of postshield volcanism. All but two samples from shield-stage strata have reversed polarity magnetization, so conceivably the exposed shield is not much older than the Olduvai Normal-Polarity subchron, or about 1.8 Ma. The oldest ages obtained are in the...

The debris-rich glacier that grew in the crater of Mount St Helens after the volcano's cataclysmic 1980 eruption was split in two by a new lava dome in 2004. For nearly six months, the eastern part of the glacier was squeezed against the crater wall as the lava dome expanded. Glacier thickness nearly doubled locally and surface speed increased substantially. As squeezing slowed and then...

The Yellowstone-Snake River Plain tectonomagmatic province resulted from Late Tertiary volcanism in western North America, producing three large, caldera-forming eruptions at the Yellowstone Plateau in the last 2 Myr. To understand the kinematics and geodynamics of this volcanic system, the University of Utah conducted seven GPS campaigns at 140 sites between 1987 and 2003 and installed...

The upward intrusion of magma from deeper to shallower levels beneath volcanoes obviously plays an important role in their surface deformation. This chapter will examine less obvious roles that hydrothermal processes might play in volcanic deformation. Emphasis will be placed on the effect that the transition from brittle to plastic behavior of rocks is likely to have on magma degassing...

This chapter contains sections titled: Introduction Geologic setting Field and Analytical Methods Results Discussion Conclusions

No abstract available.

Primary volcanic landforms are created by the ascent and eruption of magma. The ascending magma displaces and interacts with surrounding rock and fluids as it creates new pathways, flows through cracks or conduits, vesiculates, and accumulates in underground reservoirs. The formation of new pathways and pressure changes within existing conduits and reservoirs stress and deform the...

No abstract available.

Glaciological and related observations from 1961 to 2005 at the summit of Mt Wrangell (62.008 N, 144.028W; 4317 m a.s.l.), a massive glacier-covered shield volcano in south-central Alaska, show marked changes that appear to have been initiated by the Great Alaska Earthquake (MW = 9.2) of 27 March 1964. The 4 x 6 km diameter, ice-filled Summit Caldera with several post-caldera craters on...

We compare eruptive dynamics, effects and deposits of the Bezymianny 1956 (BZ), Mount St Helens 1980 (MSH), and Soufrière Hills volcano, Montserrat 1997 (SHV) eruptions, the key events of which included powerful directed blasts. Each blast subsequently generated a high-energy stratified pyroclastic density current (PDC) with a high speed at onset. The blasts were triggered by rapid...