15 During the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull on Iceland in April/May 2010, air traffic over Europe 16 was repeatedly interrupted because of volcanic ash in the atmosphere. This completely 17 unusual situation in Europe leads to the demand of improved crisis management, e.g. 18 European wide regulations of volcanic ash thresholds and improved forecasts of theses 19 thresholds. However, the quality...

Volcanic ash is fragments of magma, and consists of minerals and volcanic glass. These materials in the ash can provide important information on the nature of the magma, because chemical compositions of magma usually show distinct features in each volcano, and because assemblages and compositions of minerals reflect their host melt. Using assemblages and chemical compositions of minerals and gl...

The ecological and geological responses following the May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens are all about change: the abrupt changes instigated by geophysical disturbance processes and the rapid and gradual changes of ecological response. The explosive eruption involved an impressive variety of volcanic and hydrologic processes: a massive debris avalanche, a laterally directed blast, mudfl...

The 1883 Krakatau volcanic eruption has generated a destructive tsunami higher than 40 m on the Indonesian coast where more than 36 000 lives were lost. Sea level oscillations related with this event have been reported on significant distances from the source in the Indian, Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Evidence of many manifestations of the Krakatau tsunami was a subject of the intense discussi...

Quantifying the eruption potential of a restless volcano requires the ability to model parameters such as overpressure and calculate the host rock stress state as the system evolves. A critical challenge is developing a model-data fusion framework to take advantage of observational data and provide updates of the volcanic system through time. The Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF) uses a Monte Carlo...

It is vital to detect volcanic plumes as soon as possible for volcanic hazard mitigation such as aviation safety and the life of residents. Himawari-8, the Japan Meteorological Agency’s (JMA’s) geostationary meteorological satellite, has high spatial resolution and sixteen observation bands including the 8.6 μm band to detect sulfur dioxide (SO2). Therefore, Ash RGB composite images (RED: brigh...

In this thesis, the results from a geophysical mapping and coring campaign of Lagoa das Furnas are presented. Specific focus is placed on the origin of a subaqueous volcanic cone mapped in the southern part of the lake. Lagoa das Furnas is a crater lake within the Furnas volcanic centre which is located on the island of São Miguel in the Azores archipelago. The Furnas volcanic centre has a long...

This paper presents an experimental and theoretical study of the thermal-runaway instability induced by localized microwaves in basalt stones. This effect leads to the inner melting of the basalt core, and further to its eruption similarly to a volcanic burst. The experiments are conducted in a single-mode cavity at 2.45 GHz, 0.9 kW. The microwave-induced miniature volcano exhibits hotspots, bu...

During late September 1996, a major eruption took place at the NW part of the VatnajoÈkull glacier in central Iceland. The eruption was preceded by intense seismic activity, which began with a Mw ˆ 5:6 earthquake two days previously. Two very active volcanic systems, BaÂrdarbunga and GrimsvoÈtn, are situated in that area underneath the permanent ice cap. The volcanoseismic phenomena associated ...

On Mt. Etna (Italy), an enhanced Normalized Difference in Vegetation Index (NDVI) signature was detected in the summers of 2001 and 2002 along a distinct line where, in November 2002, a flank eruption subsequently occurred. These observations suggest that pre-eruptive volcanic activity may have enhanced photosynthesis along the future eruptive fissure. If a direct relation between NDVI and futu...