Scientists gather to discuss Kīlauea By apkyez.com

USGS: “Participants of the May 2024 Kīlauea petrology workshop observe a tephra outcrop near the Kapoho cone, located in the lower Kīlauea East Rift Zone. Tephra is a word that describes volcanic particles that come out of an erupting vent, which travel through the air before being deposited on the ground. (USGS photo by A. Lerner)

(BIVN) – Kīlauea is not erupting and the USGS Volcano Alert Level remains at ADVISORY.

The scientists reported in their latest update that “earthquake counts and rates of inflationary ground deformation in the summit and upper rift zones continue to exhibit slightly elevated behavior since the end of the June 3 eruption.”

In the last Watch the volcano The USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory article provides a description of a recent meeting of volcano geochemists and petrologists.

From this week’s article, written by University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa graduate student Rose Gallo:

During the most active part of their life cycle, called the shield phase, Hawaiian volcanoes erupt frequently and mainly produce a type of rock called basalt. Basaltic lava flows formed during the shield phase make up most of the rocks of the Hawaiian Islands. Kīlauea, one of the world’s most active volcanoes, is a modern example of a shield-building volcano.

Kīlauea primarily erupts basaltic lava flows during its frequent eruptions, such as the most recent short eruption on June 3, 2024. In addition to being primarily basaltic, Kīlauea’s lavas are constrained in their chemical composition by a stable and predictable mineral formation. Magmas that enter the volcano deep below the surface have a narrow range of chemical compositions; over time, these compositions change cyclically. As magma is stored, first in magma reservoirs beneath the summit caldera, and sometimes later in smaller magma reservoirs beneath the volcano’s fissure zones, it cools and minerals begin to form.

Minerals—such as olivine, plagioclase, and pyroxenes—form from elements in magma. The amounts of each element are relatively fixed as part of the mineral structure. When minerals form, they deplete those elements from the remaining magma. The formation of the same minerals in the same order under similar conditions of temperature and pressure results in the generation of very similar magmas over time in Kīlauea’s magma chambers.

The stable nature of Kīlauea’s lava chemistry both helps and hinders our understanding of the volcano’s behavior. The predictability and limited range of magma compositions at Kīlauea allows a reliable prediction of the style of future eruptions, and thus the associated hazards, compared to most other volcanoes.

The consistent pattern of chemical changes in Kīlauea’s magmas also provides a powerful data set to validate tools designed to simulate the chemical behavior of magmas. However, distinguishing between deposits of past eruptions can be very difficult due to the limited variability in lava flow compositions. It can be challenging to answer questions such as: How many eruptions created a given set of lava flows? Did two lava flows form at different times from the same magma reservoir?

USGS: “May 2024 Kīlauea petrology workshop participants discuss local geology near lava flows that erupted during Kīlauea’s 2018 Lower East Rift Zone eruption.” (USGS photo by A. Lerner)

In May of this year, a group of geochemists and volcano petrologists (scientists who study the chemistry, structure, and origin of volcanic rocks) met in Hilo to discuss how to improve our understanding of the storage and evolution of magma at Kīlauea with these considerations in mind. . The meeting, organized by Dr. Tom Shea of ​​the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, involved USGS scientists as well as professors and graduate students from Hawaii, Oregon, Washington and France.

Participants shared information on the current state of knowledge in Kīlauea and about techniques potentially useful for the chemical analysis of Kīlauea rocks. Some of the meeting topics included: 1) discussion of how chemical elements that occur in very low concentrations in soil can be used to identify similarities and differences between lavas, 2) comparison of several types of scientific software used to model of lava compositions observed at Kīlauea and considering necessary refinements, and 3) sharing methods for using concentrations of elements and molecules such as water, carbon dioxide, and sulfur to make interpretations about the depths at which the magma was stored before the explosion.

Meeting participants also had the opportunity to observe the volcanic features of Kīlauea in Hawaiʻi Volcanoes National Park and the lower East Rift Zone. The combined workshop and field experiences led to productive discussions on future research avenues in these areas. Just weeks after the workshop, Kīlauea again erupted basaltic lava flows, and petrologists are eagerly examining the geochemistry and minerals in the new lava for clues about the magma’s travel.