Descripción del proyecto
Un modelo para investigar la inestabilidad de las calderas
Las erupciones volcánicas que provocan la formación de calderas pueden perjudicar y alterar el clima mundial. Durante una erupción se expulsan enormes cantidades de magma, lo cual a menudo provoca letales lahares y flujos piroclásticos, así como la emisión de gases nocivos. En numerosos casos, la inestabilidad episódica (que se manifiesta con un aumento de la sismicidad, unas mayores emisiones de gases y un levantamiento pronunciado) constituye una gran preocupación por el potencial de tales erupciones. Sin embargo, todavía resulta difícil determinar si la inestabilidad indica un mayor potencial de erupciones explosivas. El proyecto financiado con fondos europeos DEFORM creará un modelo de depósito de magma basado en la física para identificar los procesos que pueden provocar la inyección y evolución de magma en la inestabilidad episódica. El proyecto mejorará nuestros conocimientos y comprensión del riesgo de erupciones asociado a la inestabilidad de las calderas.
Objetivo
Caldera-forming volcanic eruptions can have severe impacts from the local to global scale. As vast quantities of magma are ejected during the eruption, they can trigger deadly pyroclastic density currents and lahars, release noxious gases and even alter global climate. At many calderas, episodic unrest in the form of pronounced uplift, increased seismicity and elevated gas emissions raise concern over the potential for such destructive eruptions. However, it remains difficult to ascertain whether the unrest observations indicate (1) an injection of new magma into the crustal reservoir, which could increase its potential for explosive eruptions, or (2) a sudden release of magmatic volatiles from a cooling and crystallizing reservoir, which would remain unlikely to erupt explosively. In this proposed project, I will develop a physics-based model of a magma reservoir to determine the processes involved in magma injection and evolution that may lead to episodic unrest. Of particular interest is how gases migrate through the system and alter reservoir volume. The model will simulate the thermo-mechanical evolution of a two-dimensional, three-phase (solids, liquids, gas) magma reservoir. By leveraging emerging continuum frameworks for reactive transport modelling, this work will expand existing two-dimensional models to simulate three phases in varying proportions in a computationally efficient approach. The reservoir model will be coupled to ductile-to-brittle crustal deformation to understand the conditions that lead to episodic unrest. I will compare simulation results with time series observations of ground deformation and gas emissions from Laguna del Maule in Chile, thought to be undergoing magma injection, and Long Valley in the US, thought to have experienced punctuated gas release. Results will bridge the gap among current models of three-phase magma dynamics and will improve understanding of the eruption hazard implied by caldera unrest.
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MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)Coordinador
8092 Zuerich
Suiza