Publication Date:
2020-02-12
Description:
Basaltic volcanoes represent a very large portion of active volcanism and exhibit a wide variability in their
eruptive style. The basaltic eruptive activity in fact shows either a purely effusive behavior or an explosive
character, which can, rarely, also turn into violent Plinian eruptions. The most characteristic explosive activities
of basaltic magmatism are represented by Strombolian eruptions and lava fountains. The study of the relationship
that exists between the pre-eruptive dynamics (e.g. fractional crystallization, mixing, degassing), the chemicalphysical variations of the magma in the volcanic feeding system and the related outcomes (in terms of eruptive
style and geophysical markers) at the surface has been, in the last decades, reason of numerous studies.
Nonetheless, the complexity of the volcanic system and its inaccessibility to direct observations still makes it
difficult to reconstruct the dynamics of the magmatic system, basing on surface observations of the eruptive
activity. A challenging objective of modern volcanology is to quantitatively characterize eruptive/degassing
regimes from geophysical signals (in particular seismic and infrasonic), for both research and monitoring
purposes. The outcomes of the attempts made so far are still considered very uncertain because volcanoes
remain inaccessible when deriving quantitative information on crucial parameters such as plumbing system
geometry and magma viscosity. Therefore the realization of laboratory made by several devices, capable to
scale and reproduce in a controlled way the degassing dynamics of volcanic systems and measure the relative
elastic markers (seismic and acoustic), is an indispensable tool to identify reliable quantitative relationships
between the geophysical signals and the related eruptive and outgassing parameters. With the Aeolus project
we build an experimental laboratory for the study of degassing dynamics through analogue volcanic eruptions.
In particular the laboratory is capable of 1) investigate the relationship between degassing processes and the
relative seismo-acoustic signals; 2) study the effect of different degrees of irregularity (i.e. roughness of the
internal surface) of volcanic conduits on the eruptive style and/or the associated seismic-acoustic signals; 3)
unravel the timescales of cyclic activity at basaltic volcanoes, reproducing the foam collapse model of Jaupart
and Vergniolle (1988, 1989), which explains the transition between different explosive terms of the basaltic
system (e.g. Strombolian activity and lava fountains), in a range of dimensionless parameters close to the
volcanic system.
Description:
Published
Description:
Parma
Description:
4V. Processi pre-eruttivi
Keywords:
Experiments
;
Degassive dynamics
;
04.08. Volcanology
Repository Name:
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV)
Type:
Poster session
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