Predicting the future of volcanic eruptions is an issue that preoccupies researchers, as it concerns the residents of areas that suffer from these eruptions from time to time, as this prediction provides an opportunity for residents to prepare and then reduce the losses resulting from these explosions.
In an attempt to find a means for that prediction, the journal Science Advances published a scientific paper on December 4 stating the development of a new method for testing computer models that simulate the flow of volcanic magma inside volcanic channels in the Earth's interior.
As the report published on the Phys.org website indicates, the researchers relied on analyzing the ultrafine crystals of the mineral olivine, or the so-called olivine, that formed during a violent volcano eruption in Hawaii more than half a century ago.
The researchers believe that analyzing these crystalline data may enable them to deduce the quantitative features of the flow before the eruption in addition to identifying the processes that led to the eruption without drilling into the volcano, and may also help in predicting the future of the hidden active state of other volcanoes.
When the liquid magma reaches the surface it is coated with olivine crystals and bubbles (Allen Kuyt - Wikimedia Commons)
Orientation of olivine crystals
After the eruption of Kilauea volcano in Hawaii in 1959, scientists discovered millimeter-sized crystals buried in lava there.
Analysis of the crystals revealed that they were oriented according to a strange, symmetrical pattern that Stanford University researchers assumed had been formed by a wave within the magma that affected the direction of the crystals in the flow.
The team analyzed crystals from a dark porous rock from volcanic slag that form when magmas that contain dissolved gases cool.
Once liquid magma - or lava - reaches the surface, it is coated with olivine crystals and bubbles when it comes into contact with the cooler atmosphere.
This process happens so quickly that the crystals cannot change into any other shape with it, which means that they maintain a scenario that can tell us what happened during an eruption.
Thus, the new simulation depends on modeling the directions of olivine crystals within a crater near the crater crater Kilauea, which is the tube path through which hot magma rises from the ground to its surface.
Scientists intend to track the direction of olivine crystals during future Kilauea explosions (Vondeprot - Wikimedia Commons)
Big challenge
Scientists who strive to understand how and when volcanoes might erupt face a major challenge as many processes occur deep underground in lava tubes filled with magma.
And upon an eruption, any subterranean signs that might help in understanding the mechanism of an eruption are destroyed.
This is why monitoring Kilauea volcano is an ongoing challenge due to its active and unpredictable eruption.
Instead of continuously leaking lava, it causes periodic eruptions that lead to pyroclastic flows that endanger residents on the southeastern side of the Big Island of Hawaii.
The researchers suggest that tracking the direction of the olivine crystals during the different stages of the Kilauea eruptions will enable scientists to deduce the conditions of the volcanic channel flow over time.