Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C510316/1
Mechanisms and timescales of eruption triggering.
Grant Award
- Principal Investigator:
- Professor J Davidson, Durham University, Earth Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Dr DA Jerram, Durham University, Earth Sciences
- Co-Investigator:
- Professor M Holness, University of Cambridge, Earth Sciences
- Grant held at:
- Durham University, Earth Sciences
- Science Area:
- Earth
- Overall Classification:
- Earth
- ENRIs:
- Natural Resource Management
- Environmental Risks and Hazards
- Science Topics:
- Volcanic Processes
- Properties Of Earth Materials
- Tectonic Processes
- Mantle & Core Processes
- Abstract:
- Volcanoes affect the Earth's surface - and have done for more than 4 billion years. On the one hand they are a hazard to life and property, yet on the other, they provide material from the Earth's interior which is added to our atmosphere, to the oceans and to the crust. What is actually delivered to the surface - the lavas, ash and gas - is determined by processes that take place at depth in the crust. Nearly all magmas pass through a plumbing and storage system before they erupt. It is what happens in this step of the process which determines how big an eruption is, how violent it is, and what it erupts. This proposal aims to take a very detailed look at the erupted products - specifically the ash, pumice, lava and included material (enclaves) - in order to determine what these processes are and how long they take. When crystals form from a magma at high temperature in the crust they lock in a chemical record of the magma at that time. If the magma composition changes then so will the composition of the crystallising material. Thus crystals act like little tape recorders, with the compositions of their cores outwards to their rims reflecting any change in magma composition through time. Abrupt changes in the magma (such as when two magmas mix) are represented in abrupt changes in the growing crystal, which can be recognised easily through the microscope as textural discontinuities. As the crystals sit at high temperature in a magma before eruption, subtle changes occur. The movement of elements at an atomic level in the crystal structure results in compositional changes Knowing how fast the elements move (diffusion) we can carefully measure the compositional changes to infer the time that the crystal remained in the magma prior to eruption. Piles of crystals at the bottom of the magma chamber, or stuck to the walls also undergo textural changes through time. The shapes of the crystals relative to any interstitial melt trapped between them gradually changes, and we can make measurements of crystal shapes to determine how long the crystals have been accumulated, again, prior to eruption. We can also make comparisons (chemical and textural) between the cumulate enclaves and the 'loose' crystal populations in the lavas, to determine the degree to which the latter is recycled cumulate material which has been broken up and entrained during eruption. This understanding will allow us to determine what triggers volcanic eruptions, and how long this triggering process takes. This information can be integrated with measurements we can make before eruption - seismicity, gas release, changes in spring water composition and discharge, and so on, to enable us to predict more accurately the sizes and types of volcanic eruptions.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C510316/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Standard Grants Pre FEC
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Standard Grant
This grant award has a total value of £196,122
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - T&S | Total - Staff | Total - Other Costs | Total - Indirect Costs |
|---|---|---|---|
| £6,281 | £115,484 | £21,234 | £53,123 |
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