USGS Publications Warehouse (2024)

Richard W. Hazlett, Johanne Schmith, Allan Lerner, Drew T. Downs, Erin P. Fitch, Carolyn E. Parcheta, Cheryl A. Gansecki, Sarah Spaulding

2024, Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research (452)

Several powerful explosive eruptions have taken place in the populated lower East Rift Zone of Kīlauea within the past ∼750years. These have created distinctive landforms, including a tephra rim enclosing Puʻulena Crater immediately south of the Puna Geothermal Venture power station, a tuff cone at Kapoho Crater near the eastern...

Joshua Allen Crozier, Josef Dufek, Leif Karlstrom, Kyle R. Anderson, Ryan Cain Cahalan, Weston Thelen, Mary Catherine Benage, Chao Liang

2024, Nature Geoscience

Explosive volcanic eruptions produce hazardous atmospheric plumes composed of tephra particles, hot gas and entrained air. Such eruptions are generally driven by magmatic fragmentation or steam expansion. However, an eruption mechanism outside this phreatic–magmatic spectrum was suggested by a sequence of 12 explosive eruptions in May...

Alan Mair, Delwyn S. Oki, Heidi L. Kāne, Adam G. Johnson, Kolja Rotzoll

2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2023-5141

The Water-budget Accounting for Tropical Regions Model (WATRMod) code was used for Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi to estimate the spatial distribution of groundwater recharge, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and climatic water deficit for a set of water-budget scenarios. The scenarios included historical and future drought conditions,...

Frank A. Trusdell, John P. Lockwood

2024, Scientific Investigations Map 2932-E

Mauna Loa, the largest active volcano on Earth, has erupted 34 times since written descriptions became available in A.D. 1832. The most recent eruption of Mauna Loa occurred on November 27, 2022, after a 38 year hiatus; it lasted for 12 days. Some eruptions began with only brief seismic unrest,...

Joshua Allen Crozier, Kyle R. Anderson

2024, Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth (129)

In multiple observed caldera-forming eruptions, the rock overlying a draining magma reservoir dropped downward along ring faults in sequences of discrete collapse earthquakes. These sequences are analogous to tectonic earthquake cycles and provide opportunities to examine fault mechanics and collapse eruption dynamics over multiple events. Collapse earthquake...

Marie K. Takach, Frank J. III Tepley, Christopher Harpel, Rigoberto Aguilar, Marco Rivera

2024, Journal of Petrology

We investigate ten of the most recent tephra-fall deposits emplaced between ≤21–2 ka from the Pacheco stage of Misti volcano, Peru, to elucidate magma dynamics and explosive eruption triggers related to magma storage, recharge, and remobilization. Whole-rock, glass, and mineral textures and compositions indicate the presence of broadly felsic, intermediate,...

Pablo Saunders-Shultz, Taryn Lopez, Hannah R. Dietterich, Tarsilo Girona

2024, Frontiers in Earth Science (12)

An increase in volcanic thermal emissions can indicate subsurface and surface processes that precede, or coincide with, volcanic eruptions. Space-borne infrared sensors can detect hotspots—defined here as localized volcanic thermal emissions—in near-real-time. However, automatic hotspot detection systems are needed to efficiently analyze the large quantities of data produced....

Eoin Reddin, Susanna K. Ebmeier, Marco Bagnardi, Andrew F. Bell, Pedro Espín Bedón

2024, Volcanica

The western Galápagos islands of Fernandina and Isabela comprise six active volcanoes that have deformed since first observed by satellite radar in the early 1990s. We analyse new (2015–2022) displacement time series at Alcedo, Cerro Azul, Darwin, Fernandina, Sierra Negra, and Wolf volcanoes in the context of...

Tim R. Orr, James P. Kauahikaua, Christina Heliker

2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5030

An intrusion into Kīlauea’s upper East Rift Zone during June 17–19, 2007, during the 1983–2018 Pu‘u‘ō‘ō eruption, led to widespread ground cracking and a small (approximately 1,525 cubic meters) eruption on the northeast flank of Kānenuiohamo, a cone about 6 kilometers upslope from Pu‘u‘ō‘ō. Transmitted and induced very low frequency...

Stefano Mannini, Joël Ruch, Richard W. Hazlett, Drew T. Downs, Carolyn Parcheta, Steven P. Lundblad, James Anderson, Ryan L. Perroy, Nicolas Oestreicher

2024, Bulletin of Volcanology (86)

Volcanic islands are often subject to flank instability, resulting from a combination of magmatic intrusions along rift zones and gravitational spreading causing extensional faulting at the surface. Here, we study the Koaʻe fault system (KFS), located south of the summit caldera of Kīlauea volcano in Hawaiʻi,...

Tim R. Orr, Hannah R. Dietterich, David Fee, Társilo Girona, Ronni Grapenthin, Matthew M. Haney, Matthew W. Loewen, John J. Lyons, John A. Power, Hans F. Schwaiger, David J. Schneider, Darren Tan, Liam Toney, Valerie K. Wasser, Christopher F. Waythomas

2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5014

In 2021, the Alaska Volcano Observatory responded to eruptions, volcanic unrest or suspected unrest, increased seismicity, and other significant activity at 15 volcanic centers in Alaska and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. Eruptive activity in Alaska consisted of repeated small, ash-producing, phreatomagmatic explosions from Mount Young on Semisopochnoi...

Tim R. Orr, Cheryl Cameron, Hannah R. Dietterich, Matthew W. Loewen, Taryn Lopez, John J. Lyons, Jenny Nakai, John A. Power, Cheryl Searcy, Gabrielle Tepp, Christopher F. Waythomas

2024, Scientific Investigations Report 2024-5004

The Alaska Volcano Observatory responded to eruptions, volcanic unrest or suspected unrest, increased seismicity, and other significant activity at nine volcanic centers in Alaska in 2020. The most notable volcanic activity in 2020 was an eruption of Shishaldin Volcano, which produced lava flows, lahars, and ash. Mount Cleveland had one...

Mario Angarita, Ronni Grapenthin, Scott Henderson, Michael S Christoffersen, Kyle R. Anderson

2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)

We developed an open source, extensible Python-based framework, that we call the Versatile Modeling of Deformation (VMOD), for forward and inverse modeling of crustal deformation sources. VMOD abstracts from specific source model implementations, data types and inversion methods. We implement the most common geodetic source models which can be combined...

Richard M. Iverson, David L. George

2024, Book chapter, Advances in Debris-flow Science and Practice

Real-world hazard evaluation poses many challenges for the development and application of numerical models of debris flows. In this chapter we provide a conceptual overview of physically based, depth-averaged models designed to simulate debris-flow motion across three-dimensional terrain. When judiciously formulated and applied, these models can...

T. Orr, Edward W. Llewellin, Kyle R. Anderson, Matthew R. Patrick

2024, Bulletin of Volcanology (86)

In 2014, the Pāhoa lava flow at Kīlauea, on the Island of Hawaiʻi (USA), entered a string of pre-existing meter-width ground cracks in the volcano’s East Rift Zone. The ground cracks transported lava below the surface in a direction discordant to the slope of the landscape....

Cynthia Dusel-Bacon, John N. Aleinikoff, Suzanne Paradise, John F. Slack

2024, Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences (61) 471-504

The Sheep Creek prospect is a stratabound Zn–Pb–Ag–Sn massive sulfide occurrence in the Bonnifield mining district, northern Alaska Range. The prospect is within a quartz–sericite–graphite–chlorite schist unit associated with Devonian carbonaceous and siliceous metasedimentary rocks. Volcanogenic massive sulfide (VMS) deposits in the district are hosted in felsic...

Patricia Nadeau, Shaul Hurwitz, Sara Peek, Allan Lerner, Edward F. Younger, Matthew R. Patrick, David Damby, R. Blaine McCleskey, Peter J. Kelly

2024, Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems (25)

Less than a year after the 2018 Kīlauea caldera collapse and eruption, water appeared in newly deepened Halemaʻumaʻu crater. The lake—unprecedented in the written record—grew to a depth of ∼50m before lava from the December 2020 eruption boiled it away. Surface water heightened concerns of potential phreatic...

Kendra J. Lynn, Patricia Nadeau, Dawn Catherine Sweeney Ruth, Jefferson Chang, Peter Dotray, Ingrid Johanson

2024, Bulletin of Volcanology (86)

The unprecedented 2018 summit collapse at Kīlauea and subsequent 2020–2021 eruption within the newly deepened Halema‘uma‘u Crater provide an unparalleled opportunity to understand how collapse events impact a volcano’s shallow reservoir system and magmatic processes. Glass and olivine from tephra ejected by lava fountains and several...

Shaul Hurwitz, Andri Stefánsson, Everett L. Shock, Barbara I. Kleine

2024, Book chapter, Reference Module in Earth Systems and Environmental Sciences

Hydrothermal systems on the continents are of great significance because they are primary sources of economically important metals and geothermal energy, they are tourist attractions, they support bathing and health resorts, and they host extreme life forms. Research on...

Robert T. Goldman, Sara McBride, Wendy K. Stovall, David Damby

2024, Frontiers in Communication (9)

Responsive and empathic communication by scientists is critical for building trust and engagement with communities, which, in turn, promotes receptiveness toward authoritative hazard information during times of crisis. The 2018 eruption of Hawai‘i's Kīlauea Volcano was the first volcanic crisis event in which communication via the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)...

Elinor S. Meredith, Susanna F. Jenkins, Josh L. Hayes, David Lallemand, Natalia Irma Deligne, Natalie Teng Rui Xue

2024, Journal of Applied Volcanology (13)

The recent destruction of thousands of homes by lava flows from La Palma volcano, Canary Islands, and Nyiragongo volcano, Democratic Republic of Congo, serves as a reminder of the devastating impact that lava flows can have on communities living in volcanically active regions. Damage to buildings...

Lauren N. Harrison, Shaul Hurwitz, James B. Paces, Cathy Whitlock, Sara Peek, Joseph Licciardi

2024, GSA Bulletin

Chemical changes in hot springs, as recorded by thermal waters and their deposits, provide a window into the evolution of the postglacial hydrothermal system of the Yellowstone Plateau Volcanic Field. Today, most hydrothermal travertine forms to the north and south of the ca. 631 ka Yellowstone caldera where groundwater flow...

Paul Segall, Mark V. Matthews, David R. Shelly, Taiyi Wang, Kyle R. Anderson

2024, Nature Geoscience (17) 264-269

Predicting the recurrence times of earthquakes and understanding the physical processes that immediately precede them are two outstanding problems in seismology. Although geodetic measurements record elastic strain accumulation, most faults have recurrence intervals longer than available measurements. Foreshocks provide the principal observations of processes before mainshocks,...

Allan Lerner, D. Matthew Sublett Jr., Paul J. Wallace, Christina Cauley, Robert J. Bodnar

2024, Earth and Planetary Science Letters (628)

Kīlauea Volcano experiences centuries-long cycles of explosive and effusive eruptive behavior, but the relation, if any, between these eruptive styles and changing conditions in the magma plumbing system remains poorly known. We analyze olivine-hosted melt andfluid inclusionsto determine magma storage...

Silvia Vallejo Vargas, Angela K. Diefenbach, Elizabeth Gaunt, Marco Almeida, Patricio Ramon, Fernanda Naranjo, Karim Kelfoun

2024, Frontiers in Earth Science (11)

Shifts in activity at long-active, open-vent volcanoes are difficult to forecast because precursory signals are enigmatic and can be lost in and amongst daily activity. Here, we propose that crater and vent morphologies, along with summit height, can help us bring some insights into future activity at one...