Collaborative Research: Quantifying the Fluid Dynamic Processes Controlling Channelized Lava Flow Emplacement Through Numerical, Experimental, and Field Analyses

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9706822 Gregg Lava flows, present on all terrestrial planets, are the surface expression of the thermal and chemical evolution of a planet. However, because an active extraterrestrial lava flow has yet to be observed, emplacement parameters (such as effusion rate and flow velocity) must be inferred from the final flow morphology. Channelized, or leveed, lava flows (flows that solidify only at their margins during emplacement) have relatively simple geometries, and thus have been the subject of many numerical models attempting to relate eruption and emplacement conditions to final flow dimensions. However, lava is a complex fluid with temperature- and strain-rate-dependent behavior, and no extant model accurately describes all aspects of the emplacement of channelized lava flows. In contrast, computational fluid dynamic (CFD) simulations are designed to treat complicated fluids such as lava. By combining CFD simulations of lava flows with results from analog experiments using polyethelyne glycol wax to simulate lava, a new model will be generated that relates the emplacement dynamics of channelized flows with the morphology of the final lava flow form. Once the CFD simulation is shown to accurately reproduce and predict the behavior of simulated lava flows, it will be tested on the well-documented 1984 Mauna Loa, Hawaii flow.