What is general behavior and what are system or location specific characteristics during strombolian explosions

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Matthias Hort
• Subject Area: Geophysics
• Term: from 2008 to 2011
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 81878826

Eruptions at Stromboli volcano are known to occur about every 10-20mm making Stromboli volcano a natural volcanological laboratory, especially for studying eruption processes. Following the major eruption in March 2007, the well known crater terrace below the Pizzo Sopra La Fossa has been significantly reshaped now allowing a direct view at the magma in the NE crater of Stromboli volcano. This makes Stromboli an excellent target to study in situ processes at the onset of strombolian eruptions, i.e. gas bubbles bursting at the magma-air interface. In this proposal we want to study those explosions and compare our observations to ones made earlier at other volcanoes showing strombolian activity. One of the reasons for this reconnaissance study is the observation that signals of strombolian explosions recorded at various volcanoes show a large variety of features and we want to understand what are general processes during bubble bursts and what is system or volcano specific. Only through comparing the data from different systems/localities will we be able to develop a more general model for bubble bursts. This comparison will be based on an extensive correlation of our Doppler radar observations with other data sets (like infrasound, infrared and seismics) as well as detailed model calculations.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants