Researchers Are Gathering Data That Will Be Utilized To Develop Models That Will Aid in the Improvement of Lava Flow Forecasting Tools

A team from the University of South Florida is on the ground in Hawaii studying Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano in the world, to improve efforts that can help protect residents from lava flow.

While slow-moving, lava averages 2,200 degrees Fahrenheit and destroys everything in its path.

Predicting lava flow

(Photo : AGUS HARIANTO/AFP via Getty Images)

The team is gathering data that will be used to develop models that will aid in the improvement of lava flow forecasting tools, which are important in evaluating how dangers affect people, as per ScienceDaily.

MOLASSES, a modeling engine that anticipates lava flow inundation zones, is one such instrument.

MOLASSES was developed by USF geosciences Professor Chuck Connor, who believes that employing radar to collect data is critical for understanding volcanic topography and refining lava flow models.

Soon after Mauna Loa erupted in late November, the first since 1984, USF geosciences Professor Tim Dixon dispatched two graduate students, Taha Chorsi and Mahsa Afra, to Hawaii with a Terrestrial Radar Interferometer, a rare, ground-based instrument that measures where the landscape is changing and how quickly those changes are occurring.

Chorsi and Afra presented the radar to Lis Gallant, a USF alumnus and the National Science Foundation postdoctoral research fellow at the US Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory.

The USF scientists were able to catch the thickness of Mauna Loa's lava flows using radar.

The ground-based tool is unique in that it can measure the lava's surface and build a three-dimensional map in minutes.

Over the following few months, the team will analyze this data to establish where the Mauna Loa lava flow was traveling and at what speeds.

The data may be used to better understand how lava flows travel and progress, allowing scientists to develop methods used to anticipate lava flow threats using models.

Dixon has had a lot of success utilizing radar to track glaciers, landslides, earthquakes, and volcanoes.

Many of his pupils, notably Chorsi and Afra, have helped him understand the radar and create a user manual throughout the years.

Also Read: Philippines' Taal Volcano Erupts, Sends Thousands to Flee

Predicting eruption durations with satellite monitoring

If you live near a lava-spewing volcano, knowing how long molten rock may flow during a volcanic eruption may be useful, Earth Magazine.

Scientists say in a recent study that they can predict how long lava-flowing eruptions will endure using satellite data.

Geoff Wadge proposed in 1981 how effusive eruptions, such as those on the Big Island of Hawaii or Iceland, progress: once initiated, volcanic activity rapidly grows to its peak before gradually slowing down and finally fading out.

The time-averaged discharge rate, or TADR, of an eruption is calculated by plotting volcanic activity across time.

If an eruption follows Wadge's predicted pattern, the graphic resembles a lopsided bell curve.

The theory was that an effusive eruption would slow down gradually and predictably, and so the TADR values could be used to estimate the amount of time left in an eruption - critical information in assessing volcanic hazards and risk.

In the early 1980s, there were few means to see if effusive eruptions followed Wadge's pattern.

According to Estelle Bonny, a volcanology graduate student at the University of Hawaii at Manoa and main author of the current study published in the Bulletin of Volcanology, volcanologists only had scanty field observations for each eruption investigated in Wadge's 1981 paper.

Satellites that scan the Earth's surface numerous times each day, on the other hand, have substantially improved data collecting.

Bonny and her co-author and adviser, Robert Wright, of the University of Hawaii at Manoa, studied 104 effusive eruptions at 34 distinct volcanoes using thermal infrared remote sensing data acquired during the previous 15 years by the MODIS sensors aboard NASA's Terra and Aqua satellites.

According to Bonny, the infrared data allowed the researchers to detect and estimate the quantity of thermal energy generated by erupting volcanoes.

Based on these observations, the scientists were able to calculate the quantities and flow rates of lava erupting during each event analyzed, allowing them to plot the TADR on the Wadge curve for each.

The scientists discovered that the number of data points acquired during an eruption increased the accuracy of forecasts for the end of an effusive eruption.

Their greatest forecast of the conclusion of an eruption was one day off; their worst guess was 12 days off.

The authors stated that their first goal was to develop a worldwide curve that would aid in the prediction of end times for all effusive eruptions.

However, they discovered that each volcano - in fact, each eruption - is distinct, implying that a single, universal TADR curve is not attainable.

However, when volcanoes develop, continuous monitoring of the energy released can assist determine when lava will cease flowing, according to the experts.