Geology of Interactions of Volcanoes, Snow, and Water:

PROJECT DATA

• Title

  Geology of Interactions of Volcanoes, Snow, and Water

• Chief

  Richard B. Waitt

  U.S. Geological Survey

  Cascades Volcano Observatory

  1300 SE Cardinal Court

  Building 10, Suite 100

  Vancouver, WA 98683

  Phone: (360) 993-8947

  e-mail: waitt@usgs.gov

• Objectives

  • To predict hazards to life and property from active volcanoes, focusing on various violent interactions between volcanoes and water (as water, snow, and ice) and their cataclysmic results

  • To understand processes of violent interactions between volcanoes and water (water, snow, ice). These interactions are of two general types:
    1. Surficial, as when explosive, hot, turbulent eruptions interact with snow or water bodies. These include:
       • Swift melting of snowpack or glacier ice by swift intermixing of newly erupted pyroclasts with snow

       • Swift displacement of water (local tsunamis) by rapidly moving flows of volcanic materials

    2. Internal, involving subsurface (ground) water
       • Eruptions whose explosive energy derives mainly from trapped water that, when heated, "flashes" to steam (so-called phreatic and phreatomagmatic eruptions)

       • Destabilization of volcanic edifices when intruding magma, interacting with groundwater, weakens rock to form cataclysmic landslides (debris avalanches)

• Strategy

  • Field geology: stratigraphy, geomorphology, mapping, sedimentology of deposits of:
    • Historic (especially new) eruptions at snow- and ice-clad volcanoes

    • Older maar and tuff rings and tuff cones

  • Numerical modeling and (or) experimental verification of some processes (collaborating with others)

• Recent collaborators

  • Thomas P. Miller
    USGS, Alaska Volcano Observatory, Anchorage, AK
    (907) 786-7454

  • Larry G. Mastin
    USGS, Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, WA

  • James E. Beget
    University of Alaska, Geophysical Institute
    Alaska Volcano Observatory, Fairbanks, AK
    (907) 474-5301

Related Topics

• Summary
• Results of Recent Surveys

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