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

这项早期探索研究资助（EaGER）利用维拉里卡火山独特的几何形状（即一个直径150米的对称小火山口和火山口边缘以下65米的活跃局部喷口），对气体和热通量以及压力波动进行直接采样观测，同时记录熔岩湖表面活动的时间同步高清视频。这个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，帮助解决了一些最初的工程挑战，将传感器的有效载荷悬挂和降低到活动喷口。这个EaGER项目试图捕捉熔岩湖的表面活动以及气体和火山碎屑的瞬态排放，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。预计这一实验将导致一套更好的工具和观测技术，可以在未来的研究中应用于其他火山系统。该项目的最终目标是了解地震和次声震动的性质和来源，这在维拉里卡和其他开放式火山系统中很常见。该研究计划利用了由密歇根理工大学（MTU）的另一个团队部署的并发地震阵列，它将使研究人员和学生能够共享Villarica站点的后勤工作，并在MTU团队安装密集阵列后专注于山顶的喷口观测。两所大学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，大约有十几个目前活跃的、持续脱气的、开放的火山系统。维拉里卡火山的化学性质和喷发方式相对来说比较普遍，因此在这项研究中所做的观察应该有助于促进其他地方类似火山喷发动力学模型的发展和区分。对喷口的直接观测将有助于区分各种类型的弹性能的来源，这些弹性能既来自内部，也来自地表。

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.