BGA Postgraduate Research

in Progress Meeting

Imperial College London
10th-11th September 2009

Volcano physics: from bubbles to bangs!

Ed Llewellin

Department of Earth Sciences, Durham University

ed.llewellin@durham.ac.uk

Volcanic eruptions are spectacular, fascinating and diverse. Some produce explosions that blast many cubic kilometres of rock into the stratosphere and cause regional devastation. Others produce fountains and rivers of lava that create a dramatic natural tourist attraction. Many do no more than quietly release gas into the atmosphere.

Despite this diversity of eruptive style, all volcanic eruptions are driven by the same fundamental mechanism - the formation and growth of bubbles of magmatic gas. So why do some volcanoes explode violently, whilst others bubble quietly? This questions is of particular interest to the 500 million people who live within 100 km of an active volcano, and for whom volcanic risk is a daily fact of life.

Answering this question is one of the key goals of physical volcanology. In this talk I will show how eruptive style at the volcano scale is largely controlled by physical processes at a much smaller scale - the scale of bubbles and crystals suspended within the magma. I will discuss how field observations, geophysical data, laboratory experiments and numerical modelling have all played a role in explaining the fascinating physics that governs volcanic eruptions.

WARNING: talk will include live volcanic eruption.