Monitoring Erebus volcano's active lava lake; tools, techniques and observations ...
Active lava lakes present a rare opportunity to observe directly the complex processes occurring within a magma body. Situated on Ross Island, Antarctica, the 3794-m-high crater of Erebus volcano has hosted a phonolite lava lake for decades. Previous studies have shown that many of the lake’s charac...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Apollo - University of Cambridge Repository
2015
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| Online Access: | https://dx.doi.org/10.17863/cam.16444 https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/handle/1810/247223 |
| Summary: | Active lava lakes present a rare opportunity to observe directly the complex processes occurring within a magma body. Situated on Ross Island, Antarctica, the 3794-m-high crater of Erebus volcano has hosted a phonolite lava lake for decades. Previous studies have shown that many of the lake’s characteristics, such as surface velocity, gas flux and gas composition, exhibit a pronounced pulsatory behaviour on a time-scale of ∼10 min. Focusing primarily on the analysis of infra-red (IR) imagery acquired from the crater rim, this dissertation considers how the periodic behaviour of the Erebus lava lake evolves over decadal time periods, how the cyclic fluctuations of the different properties are interrelated and what can be inferred about the mechanisms occurring beneath the surface of the lake from these observations. Creation of new hardware, software and methodologies to facilitate these types of observations is a strong focus of this work. Chapter 1 introduces the nature of active lava lakes, reviews ... |
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