Periodic Reporting for period 2 - MODERATE (Magma Outgassing During Eruptions and Geothermal Exploration)
Période du rapport: 2022-10-01 au 2024-03-31
MODERATE is a timely, innovative, interdisciplinary project aiming to radically broaden our understanding of magma-gas coupling in volcanic and superhot, geothermal systems. The objectives are to: 1) constrain the impact of external forcing mechanisms (i.e. decompression, temperature changes, shear and pressure oscillations from shaking, impact and rupture) on the formation of gas bubble (i.e. vesticulation), 2) quantify the development of gas bubble connectivity (i.e. permeability) to allow gas release, and 3) define manipulationstrategies to moderate magma outgassing and alleviate the risk of volcanic eruption associated with drilling and borehole operations.
A map of magma vesiculation and permeability under a wider range of conditions and stressing scenarios than everachieved before will allow us to resolve current conundrums and explore new regimes to control permeability in magma. This innovative effort will allow us to moderate magma outgassing, thus enabling direct access to magma energy and eventually providing a means to control outgassing and alleviate eruption potential.
We have demonstrated that we can model the evolution of aggregates of melt droplets that agglutinate, whilst loosing gas, which is important to model the gas emitted between explosions at active volcanoes or to control gas los from magma at the bottom of a well. We have also shown that the occurrence of earthquakes damages volcanic rocks and their ability to release gas; next we will attempt these complex experiments on magma. Finally we have shown that drilling into magma causes changes in pressure and temperature that influence the properties of magma: it causes gas loss and crystallisation. In the coming years we will work to evaluate how these changes would influence the mobility of magma.