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1. Kīlauea’s 2008–2018 Summit Lava Lake—Chronology and Eruption Insights

   Patrick, M; Orr, T; Swanson, D A; Houghton, B F; Wooten, K; Desmither, L; Parcheta, C; Fee, D. (January 2021, US Geological Survey professional paper)

   null (Ed.)

   The first eruption at Kīlauea’s summit in 25 years began on March 19, 2008, and persisted for 10 years. The onset of the eruption marked the first explosive activity at the summit since 1924, forming the new “Overlook crater” (as the 2008 summit eruption crater has been informally named) within the existing crater of Halemaʻumaʻu. The first year consisted of sporadic lava activity deep within the Overlook crater. Occasional small explosions deposited spatter and small wall-rock lithic pieces around the Halemaʻumaʻu rim. After a month-long pause at the end of 2008, deep sporadic lava lake activity returned in 2009. Continuous lava lake activity began in February 2010. The lake rose significantly in late 2010 and early 2011, before subsequently draining briefly in March 2011. This disruption of the summit eruption was triggered by eruptive activity on the East Rift Zone. Rising lake levels through 2012 established a more stable, larger lake in 2013, with continued enlargement over the subsequent 5 years. Lava reached the Overlook crater rim and overflowed on the Halemaʻumaʻu floor in brief episodes in 2015, 2016, and 2018, but the lake level was more commonly 20–60 meters below the rim during 2014–18. The lake was approximately 280×200 meters (~42,000 square meters) by early 2018 and formed one of the two largest lava lakes on Earth. A new eruption began in the lower East Rift Zone on May 3, 2018, causing magma to drain from the summit reservoir complex. The lava in Halemaʻumaʻu had drained below the crater floor by May 10, followed by collapse of the Overlook and Halemaʻumaʻu craters. The collapse region expanded as much of the broader summit caldera floor subsided incrementally during June and July. By early August 2018, the collapse sequence had ended, and the summit was quiet. The historic changes in May–August 2018 brought a dramatic end to the decade of sustained activity at Kīlauea’s summit. The unique accessibility of the 2008–18 lava lake provided new observations of lava lake behavior and open-vent basaltic outgassing. Data indicated that explosions were triggered by rockfalls from the crater walls, that the lake consisted of a low-density foamy lava, that cycles of gas pistoning were rooted at shallow depths in the lake, and that lake level fluctuations were closely tied to the pressure of the summit magma reservoir. Lava chemistry added further support for an efficient hydraulic connection between the summit and East Rift Zone. Notwithstanding the benefits to scientific understanding, the eruption presented a persistent hazard of volcanic air pollution (vog) that commonly extended far from Kīlauea’s summit. 

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2. The 2018 Eruption of Kīlauea: Insights, Puzzles, and Opportunities for Volcano Science

   https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-earth-031621-075925  

   Anderson, Kyle R.; Shea, Thomas; Lynn, Kendra J.; Montgomery-Brown, Emily K.; Swanson, Donald A.; Patrick, Matthew R.; Shiro, Brian R.; Neal, Christina A. (May 2024, Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences)

   The science of volcanology advances disproportionately during exceptionally large or well-observed eruptions. The 2018 eruption of Kīlauea Volcano (Hawai‘i) was its most impactful in centuries, involving an outpouring of more than one cubic kilometer of basalt, a magnitude 7 flank earthquake, and the volcano's largest summit collapse since at least the nineteenth century. Eruptive activity was documented in detail, yielding new insights into large caldera-rift eruptions; the geometry of a shallow magma storage-transport system and its interaction with rift zone tectonics; mechanisms of basaltic tephra-producing explosions; caldera collapse mechanics; and the dynamics of fissure eruptions and high-volume lava flows. Insights are broadly applicable to a range of volcanic systems and should reduce risk from future eruptions. Multidisciplinary collaboration will be required to fully leverage the diversity of monitoring data to address many of the most important outstanding questions. ▪ Unprecedented observations of a caldera collapse and coupled rift zone eruption yield new opportunities for advancing volcano science. ▪ Magma flow to a low-elevation rift zone vent triggered quasi-periodic step-like collapse of a summit caldera, which pressurized the magma system and sustained the eruption. ▪ Kīlauea's magmatic-tectonic system is tightly interconnected over tens of kilometers, with complex feedback mechanisms and interrelated hazards over widely varying time scales. ▪ The eruption revealed magma stored in diverse locations, volumes, and compositions, not only beneath the summit but also within the volcano's most active rift zone. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Volume 52 is May 2024. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates. 

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3. Precursor-free eruption triggered by edifice rupture at Nyiragongo volcano

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-022-05047-8  

   Smittarello, D.; Smets, B.; Barrière, J.; Michellier, C.; Oth, A.; Shreve, T.; Grandin, R.; Theys, N.; Brenot, H.; Cayol, V.; et al (September 2022, Nature)

   Abstract Classical mechanisms of volcanic eruptions mostly involve pressure buildup and magma ascent towards the surface¹. Such processes produce geophysical and geochemical signals that may be detected and interpreted as eruption precursors^1–3. On 22 May 2021, Mount Nyiragongo (Democratic Republic of the Congo), an open-vent volcano with a persistent lava lake perched within its summit crater, shook up this interpretation by producing an approximately six-hour-long flank eruption without apparent precursors, followed—rather than preceded—by lateral magma motion into the crust. Here we show that this reversed sequence was most likely initiated by a rupture of the edifice, producing deadly lava flows and triggering a voluminous 25-km-long dyke intrusion. The dyke propagated southwards at very shallow depth (less than 500 m) underneath the cities of Goma (Democratic Republic of the Congo) and Gisenyi (Rwanda), as well as Lake Kivu. This volcanic crisis raises new questions about the mechanisms controlling such eruptions and the possibility of facing substantially more hazardous events, such as effusions within densely urbanized areas, phreato-magmatism or a limnic eruption from the gas-rich Lake Kivu. It also more generally highlights the challenges faced with open-vent volcanoes for monitoring, early detection and risk management when a significant volume of magma is stored close to the surface. 

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4. Explosive 2018 eruptions at Kīlauea driven by a collapse-induced stomp-rocket mechanism

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41561-024-01442-0  

   Crozier, Josh; Dufek, Josef; Karlstrom, Leif; Anderson, Kyle R; Cahalan, Ryan; Thelen, Weston; Benage, Mary; Liang, Chao (June 2024, Nature Geoscience)

   Bahadori, Alireza (Ed.)

   Article Published: 27 May 2024 Explosive 2018 eruptions at Kīlauea driven by a collapse-induced stomp-rocket mechanism Josh Crozier, Josef Dufek, Leif Karlstrom, Kyle R. Anderson, Ryan Cahalan, Weston Thelen, Mary Benage & Chao Liang Nature Geoscience volume 17, pages572–578 (2024)Cite this article 1357 Accesses 430 Altmetric Metricsdetails Abstract 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 2018 at Kīlauea, Hawaii, that occurred during the early stages of caldera collapse and produced atmospheric plumes reaching 8 km above the vent. Here we use seismic inversions for reservoir pressure as a source condition for three-dimensional simulations of transient multiphase eruptive plume ascent through a conduit and stratified atmosphere. We compare the simulations with conduit ascent times inferred from seismic and infrasound data, and with plume heights from radar data. We find that the plumes are consistent with eruptions caused by a stomp-rocket mechanism involving the abrupt subsidence of reservoir roof rock that increased pressure in the underlying magma reservoir. In our model, the reservoir was overlain by a pocket of accumulated high-temperature magmatic gas and lithic debris, which were driven through a conduit approximately 600 m long to erupt particles at rates of around 3,000 m3 s−1. Our results reveal a distinct collapse-driven type of eruption and provide a framework for integrating diverse geophysical and atmospheric data with simulations to gain a better understanding of unsteady explosive eruptions. 

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5. Asymmetric magma plumbing system beneath Axial Seamount based on full waveform inversion of seismic data

   https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-49188-y  

   Yang, Jidong; Zhu, Hejun; Zhao, Zeyu; Huang, Jianping; Lumley, David; Stern, Robert J; Dunn, Robert A; Arnulf, Adrien F; Ma, Jianwei (December 2024, Nature Communications)

   Abstract The architecture of magma plumbing systems plays a fundamental role in volcano eruption and evolution. However, the precise configuration of crustal magma reservoirs and conduits responsible for supplying eruptions are difficult to explore across most active volcanic systems. Consequently, our understanding of their correlation with eruption dynamics is limited. Axial Seamount is an active submarine volcano located along the Juan de Fuca Ridge, with known eruptions in 1998, 2011, and 2015. Here we present high-resolution images of P-wave velocity, attenuation, and estimates of temperature and partial melt beneath the summit of Axial Seamount, derived from multi-parameter full waveform inversion of a 2D multi-channel seismic line. Multiple magma reservoirs, including a newly discovered western magma reservoir, are identified in the upper crust, with the maximum melt fraction of ~15–32% in the upper main magma reservoir (MMR) and lower fractions of 10% to 26% in other satellite reservoirs. In addition, a feeding conduit below the MMR with a melt fraction of ~4–11% and a low-velocity throat beneath the eastern caldera wall connecting the MMR roof with eruptive fissures are imaged. These findings delineate an asymmetric shallow plumbing system beneath Axial Seamount, providing insights into the magma pathways that fed recent eruptions. 

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