Cracking Volcanoes

A selection of the large eruptions that Santiaguito has produced in 2016. Left: 11 April (Source: INSIVUMEH ). Middle: 19 May (Source: INSIVUMEH ). Right: 17 June (Source:  Stereo100Noticias ). Last week Anthony Lamur and I were back in Guatemala to collect more observations from Santiaguito volcano . The fieldwork was prompted by the occurrence of several very large eruptions at the volcano in 2016 (like those in the image above), a departure from the regular but relatively small explosions that are typical of the place. What we wanted to know was what mechanism is driving the much larger explosions? Our campsite on Santa Maria on the morning of June 13th. The shadow of Santa Maria (3,772 m high) stretches far into the distance.  Our task for the trip was simple: we would camp on Santa Maria and watch Santiaguito for a few days with optical and thermal cameras to record any explosions. We also deployed a temporary acoustic microphone to record the infrasound prod...

It's now been a year since I started my PhD here at the University of Liverpool. To commemorate the occasion, I thought it would be great to list some interesting numbers related to all the things I have managed to do in that time. Here goes: Published 1 paper based on the work I did for my masters thesis at the University of Oxford. I'm delighted to finally have it published and very thankful for Tamsin Mather, David Pyle, Nick Varley, Patrick Smith and Emma Liu for all their help!  Attended 3 conferences: VMSG in Edinburgh in January, EGU in Vienna in April, and BGA right here in the University of Liverpool. Attended no less than   6   workshops: the workshops covered a wide range of topics (e.g. environmental geophysics, volcano deformation, magma, glasses and melts) and took me across Europe (e.g. Lake District, Iceland and Munich).  Started this very blog in April, and this is post number  6 . I have no plans to stop any time soon! Visited 7  ...

Last week I flew to Munich to join 29 other students to take part in the Magma, Glasses and Melts short course. The course is about the behaviour of magmas under certain conditions and what implications this has for volcanic activity. You also get the chance to see laboratories which replicate the conditions inside volcanoes and have helped produce the research taught in the course. It has been run annually for over a decade by the volcanology group which is headed by Prof. Don Dingwell. Don has been at the forefront of this research area for over 25 years so there is no one more suitable for teaching the course. An explosion at Volcan de Colima earlier this year. Was this explosion started by fracturing bubbles?  The purpose of the course is to teach about the peculiar properties of magma as it squeezes and stretches on its way up to the surface. Small changes in temperature, pressure and chemistry can have a dramatic effect on the viscosity of the magma. Viscosity is a...

Volcan de Colima, looking north-west, with the active lava dome on the summit and Volcancito on the east flank (taken 3rd June 2014). Since my last blog post  I have been lucky enough to head out to Colima, Mexico, for fieldwork. The state boasts long pacific beaches, beautiful river gorges, friendly locals, delicious food, and one very big, very active volcano. Volcan de Colima has been erupting near-continuously since 1998 and is one of the volcanoes that I am investigating as part of my project (see my introduction to the volcanoes ). On a clear day, its hard to not notice the volcano which completely dominates the generally low-lying landscape around it; this is nicely shown by this photo  taken from the ISS last year. The latest phase of it's eruption has been going since January 2013, and is producing a new lava dome accompanied by many small pyroclastic flows, rockfalls, and explosions (over 4000 in total as of the start of May 2014). The lava dome at th...

Last week, I was fortunate enough to attend the European Geosciences Union General Assembly 2014 which was held in the beautiful city of Vienna, Austria. For those of you who are not entirely familiar with the meeting, it is one of the biggest annual gathering of geoscientists in Europe. These scientists come together every year to discuss the latest research in their respective fields, which includes everything from the understanding the dynamics of the core, to behaviour of the Earth's atmosphere, and beyond. How big is it you may ask? It's big, really big. Over the course of 5 days, 568 sessions were attended by 12,437 researchers from 106 countries, 4892 presentations were watched, 9538 posters were scrutinised, and 483 PICO s were played with on giant touchscreens. Of course, this pales in comparison with the annual American Geosciences Union Fall meeting which clocked in over 22,000 attendees last December. However, considering the fact the largest conference I had been ...