EaGER: Into the Vent: Probing the basaltic lava lake at Villarrica

EaGER：进入火山口：探索比亚里卡的玄武岩熔岩湖

• 批准号: 1127696
• 负责人: Jeffrey Johnson
• 金额: $ 1.49万
• 依托单位: New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-04-01 至 2012-03-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1127696&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EaGER; Into; Vent; Probing; basaltic

This Early Grant for Exploratory Research (EaGER) takes advantage of the unique geometry of the volcano Villarica (i.e., a small symmetric 150-m diameter crater and active localized vent ~65 m below the crater rim) to make direct sampling observations of gas and thermal flux and pressure fluctuations, while recording time-synchronized high definition video of lava lake surface activity. This exploratory phase of the project builds on an earlier expedition supported by National Geographic that helped address some initial engineering challenges to suspend and lower a payload of sensors down toward the active vent. This EaGER endeavors to capture lava lake surface activity and transient emissions of gas and pyroclasts to help us better understand this volcano's seismic and acoustic radiation, which is complex and remains poorly understood. It is expected that this experiment will lead to a better set of tools and observational techniques that can be applied to other volcanic systems in future studies.An ultimate goal of this project is to understand the nature and source of seismic and infrasonic tremors, which are common at Villarrica and other open vent volcanic systems. The research plan takes advantage of a concurrent seismic array that will be deployed by another team from Michigan Tech University (MTU), and it will enable the investigator and students to share in the logistics at the Villarica site and focus on vent observations from the summit following installation of the dense array by the MTU group. Students and faculty from both institutions will perform joint analysis of the datasets collaboratively. Worldwide, there are about a dozen currently active, persistently degassing, open vent volcanic systems. Villarrica's chemistry and eruption style is relatively common such that observations made in this study should help facilitate development and allow differentiation of models for eruption dynamics at similar volcanoes elsewhere. Direct observations of the vent will help differentiate the origin of various types of elastic energy, which originate both internally and at the surface.

这项探索性研究早期资助（EaGER）利用了维拉里卡火山独特的几何形状（即，一个直径为150米的小型对称火山口和火山口边缘以下约65米处的活跃局部喷口），以便对气体和热通量以及压力波动进行直接取样观测，同时记录熔岩湖表面活动的时间同步高清晰度视频。 该项目的探索阶段建立在国家地理支持的早期探险的基础上，该探险帮助解决了一些最初的工程挑战，以将传感器的有效载荷悬挂和降低到活动的喷口。EaGER努力捕捉熔岩湖表面活动和气体和火山碎屑的瞬时排放，以帮助我们更好地了解这座火山的地震和声辐射，这是复杂的，仍然知之甚少。 预计这一实验将产生一套更好的工具和观测技术，可在今后的研究中应用于其他火山系统，这一项目的最终目标是了解地震和次声震动的性质和来源，这些震动在比利亚里卡和其他开口喷口火山系统很常见。该研究计划利用了将由密歇根理工大学（MTU）的另一个团队部署的并行地震阵列，它将使研究人员和学生能够分享Villarica现场的后勤工作，并专注于MTU集团安装密集阵列后的山顶喷口观测。来自这两个机构的学生和教师将合作对数据集进行联合分析。在世界范围内，目前大约有十几个活跃的、持续脱气的开放式喷口火山系统。比利亚里卡的化学和喷发风格是比较常见的，在这项研究中所作的观察应有助于促进发展，并允许在其他地方类似的火山喷发动力学模型的分化。直接观察喷口将有助于区分各种类型的弹性能量的起源，这些能量起源于内部和表面。