Simulating path of ‘magma mush’ inside an active volcano

UW doctoral student Jillian Schleicher and UW professor of Earth and space sciences George Bergantz with a Mauna Loa basalt samples they will compare with the simulation results. — UW doctoral student Jillian Schleicher and professor George Bergantz with a Mauna Loa basalt sample they will compare with the simulation results.

Months of warning signs from Mauna Loa, on Hawaii’s Big Island, prompted the U.S. Geological Survey to recently start releasing weekly updates on activity at the world’s largest active volcano.

For now, such warning signs can only rely on external clues, like earthquakes and gas emissions. But a University of Washington simulation has managed to demonstrate what’s happening deep inside the volcano. The study, published Sept. 7 in Nature Geoscience, is the first to simulate the individual crystals’ movement in the magma chamber to better understand the motion of the magma and buildup of pressure.

Developed by a team that includes UW doctoral student in Earth and Space Sciences Jillian Schleicher and professor of Earth and Space Sciences George Bergantz, the idealized UW computer simulation could help volcanologists better understand how energy builds up inside a system like Mauna Loa to predict when it will erupt.