Complex Episodic Explosive Volcanism: Eruption Dynamics of the 1959 Kilauea Iki Eruption, Hawaii

1959年的基拉韦厄伊基火山喷发是有史以来记录最完整的玄武岩爆炸性喷发之一。在这次火山喷发期间观察到了该火山有记录以来最高的熔岩喷泉，在37天内发生了16个阶段的爆炸活动。然而，这些火喷泉的长度和间隔都不规则，并伴随着熔岩从邻近的基拉韦厄伊基火山口新形成的熔岩湖中流出和流入。理解这种经典喷发的一个新的逻辑步骤是进入喷发内部，将单个喷发阶段或发作视为离散实体。该项目的主要目标是完成这一复杂的火喷泉喷发的火山碎屑产品的文件，确定喷发的偶发性的根本原因，以及喷发产品中网状岩-浮石和火山渣-飞溅物的对比丰度和分散。研究人员计划首先完善锥体生长速率和性质的观察数据库，以匹配喷泉高度随时间的记录。其次，他们将绘制分布广泛的火山渣-浮石层中的各个岩层，并将它们分配给各个喷发事件，并限制它们的扩散。最后，他们将量化大小分布的泡沫和微晶人口爆发碎屑约束对比历史的上升，喷发和冷却。就更广泛的影响而言，更清楚地了解夏威夷玄武岩喷发的触发机制对于评估玄武岩火山未来爆炸事件的危险以及提高对这些火山行为范围的了解至关重要。更具体地说，基拉韦厄伊基1959年矿床是访问了几乎所有的230万游客到夏威夷火山国家公园（HVNP）在2002年。计划与HVNP建立伙伴关系，利用独立资金开发一系列产品和解释性活动，使这次火山爆发成为游客的展示。火山爆发已经为研究生的四个实地研讨会奠定了基础，并成为活动火山研究中心举办的年度课程的特色。调查结果将通过互联网广泛传播，使用由夏威夷火山国家公园、夏威夷火山观测站和夏威夷大学主办的链接网站。

The 1959 eruption of Kilauea Iki was one of the best-documented basaltic explosive eruptions ever recorded. The highest lava fountains yet recorded for that volcano were observed during this eruption and 16 phases of explosive activity took place over 37 days. However, these fire-fountaining episodes were of irregular length and spacing and accompanied by drainage of lava from and into a newly formed lava lake in the adjacent Kilauea Iki crater. A new logical step in understanding this classical eruption is to move inside the eruption to treat individual eruptive phases or episodes as discrete entities. The primary goal of this project is to complete the documentation of the pyroclastic products of this complex fire-fountaining eruption identifying underlying causes of the episodic nature of the eruption, and the contrasting abundance and dispersal of reticulite-pumice and scoria-spatter in the eruption products. The investigators plan to first refine the database of observations of the rates and nature of cone growth to match to the record of fountain height with time. Secondly, they will map individual beds in the widespread scoria-pumice blanket and assign them to individual eruptive episodes and constrain their dispersal. Finally they will quantify size distributions of bubble and microlite populations in the erupted clasts to constrain contrasting histories of ascent, eruption, and cooling. In terms of broader impacts, a clearer understanding of the triggering mechanisms of Hawaiian basaltic eruptions is of fundamental importance in order to assess hazards of future explosive events at basaltic volcanoes, and to improve understanding of the range of behaviors of these volcanoes. More specifically, the Kilauea Iki 1959 deposits are visited by almost all of the 2.3 million visitors to Hawaii Volcanoes National Park (HVNP) in 2002. It is planned to form a partnership with HVNP using independent funding to develop a range of products and interpretative activities to make this eruption a showcase for visitors. The eruption has already formed the basis for four field workshops for graduate students and features in the annual courses run by the Center for the Study of Active Volcanoes. The results will be widely disseminated via the Internet using linked web sites hosted by Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, Hawaiian Volcano Observatory and University of Hawaii.