Matthew Patrick, Ph.D.

The Puʻu ʻŌʻō eruption of Kīlauea Volcano is its longest rift-zone eruption in more than 500 years. Since the eruption began in 1983, lava flows have buried 48 square miles (125 square kilometers) of land and added about 500 acres (200 hectares) of new land to the Island of Hawaiʻi. The eruption not only challenges local communities, which must adapt to an ever-changing and sometimes...

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...

From October 2008 until present, dozens of small impulsive explosive eruptions occurred from the Overlook vent on the southeast side of Halema‘uma‘u Crater, at Kīlauea volcano, USA. These eruptions were triggered by rockfalls from the walls of the volcanic vent and conduit onto the top of the lava column. Here we use microtextural observations and data from clasts erupted during the well

Ongoing eruptive activity at Kīlauea volcano’s (Hawai‘i) summit has been controlled in part by the evolution of its vent from a 35-m-diameter opening into a collapse crater 150 m across. Geologic observations, in particular from a network of webcams, have provided an unprecedented look at collapse crater development, lava lake dynamics, and shallow outgassing processes. These...

Effusion rate is a primary measurement used to judge the expected advance rate, length, and hazard potential of lava flows. At basaltic volcanoes, the rapid draining of lava stored in rootless shields and perched ponds can produce lava flows with much higher local effusion rates and advance velocities than would be expected based on the effusion rate at the vent. For several months in...

Thermal mapping of volcanoes is important to determine baseline thermal behavior in order to judge future thermal activity that may precede an eruption. We used cloud-free kinetic temperature images from the ASTER (Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer) sensor obtained between 2000 and 2010 to produce thermal maps for all five subaerial volcanoes in Hawai‘i that...