Untangling the Nature and Timescales of Magmatic Processes Driving Eruptions at Quiescent Volcanoes: Examples from Momotombo, Nicaragua, and Cumbre Vieja, Canary Islands

• Main Author: Tramontano, Samantha
• Format: Doctoral or Postdoctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: CUNY Academic Works 2023
• Subjects: mineralogy; petrology; diffusion chronometry; thermodynamic models; Geochemistry; Geology; Volcanology; Cassidy; Malfait; New Zealand; Petty; White Island
• Online Access: https://academicworks.cuny.edu/gc_etds/5397; https://academicworks.cuny.edu/context/gc_etds/article/6461/viewcontent/Tramontano_Dissertation2023_FINAL_LIB2.pdf

Across all scales of human relationships (i.e. person-to-person, country-to-country, etc.), qualms can take the form of long-standing wars, quick and intense bouts, or petty exchanges. While our understanding of human behavior is ever increasing, reactions and behaviors of self and others may still come as a surprise. Expressions of disagreement can occur suddenly or following years to centuries of accumulated grievances. The solid earth is also a system that behaves (like human emotion) predictably at times and unpredictably at other times. Some volcanoes, a tangible surface expression of solid earth processes, exhibit precursory signals prior to eruption (e.g. the bulging of the Mt. St. Helens, edifice, USA), while others erupt violently without warning or time-sensitive signals (e.g. the phreatomagmatic eruptions at Mt. Ontake, Japan and Whakaari/White Island, New Zealand). Interpersonal human systems (at any scale) are complex beyond our current comprehension; yet, we work towards understanding each other and ourselves to minimize the negative impacts that come in association with fights, wars, and passive-aggressive spats. Likewise, to minimize the negative impacts of volcanic systems, it is not necessary to understand how every bit of the system works – just the time-sensitive dynamic behaviors that would directly jeopardize human life. In this work, we aim to untangle the ‘accumulation of grievances’ (magma supply) at two volcanoes (Momotombo Volcano, Nicaragua and Cumbre Vieja, La Palma, Canary Islands, Spain) to gain a better understanding of the timings of magma supply to a volcano-magmatic system by recharge and how that influences eruption onset and duration. In addition to magma recharge, eruption-influencing perturbations simultaneously occurring within a volcanic-magmatic system include magma mixing, assimilation of wall rock, volatile fluxing, magma differentiation, and the interplay of crystallization and volatile exsolution (Blake, 1984; Caricchi et al., 2018; Cassidy et al., 2018; Malfait et ...