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

1959年基拉韦厄伊基火山的喷发是有记录以来记录最完整的玄武岩喷发之一。在这次喷发期间，观测到该火山有记录以来最高的熔岩喷泉，在37天内发生了16次爆炸活动。然而，这些喷火事件的长度和间隔都是不规则的，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，将单个喷发阶段或事件视为离散的实体。该项目的主要目标是完成对这一复杂喷火喷发的火山碎屑产物的记录，确定喷发幕式性质的潜在原因，并对比喷发产物中网状浮石和碎屑飞溅的丰度和分布。研究人员计划首先完善观测到的圆锥体生长速度和性质的数据库，使之与喷泉高度随时间变化的记录相匹配。其次，他们将在广泛分布的火山浮石毯中绘制单个床，并将它们分配给单个喷发事件，并限制它们的扩散。最后，他们将量化喷发碎屑中气泡和微岩种群的大小分布，以约束上升、喷发和冷却的对比历史。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发事件的危害，以及提高对这些火山行为范围的理解，具有至关重要的意义。更具体地说，2002年，夏威夷火山国家公园（HVNP）的230万游客中几乎所有人都参观了基拉韦厄火山1959矿床。它计划与HVNP建立合作关系，使用独立资金开发一系列产品和解说活动，使这次火山喷发成为游客的展示。这次火山喷发已经成为研究生四场实地研讨会的基础，也是活火山研究中心每年开设的课程的特色。研究结果将通过互联网通过夏威夷火山国家公园、夏威夷火山天文台和夏威夷大学主办的链接网站广泛传播。

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.