Crustal magma chambers can grow to be hundreds to thousands of cubic kilometers, potentially feeding catastrophic caldera‐forming eruptions. Smaller volume chambers are expected to erupt frequently and freeze quickly; a major outstanding question is how magma chambers ever grow to the sizes required to sustain the largest eruptions on Earth. We use a thermo‐mechanical model to investigate the primary factors that govern the extrusive:intrusive ratio in a chamber, and how this relates to eruption frequency, eruption size, and long‐term chamber growth. The model consists of three fundamental timescales: the magma injection timescale
Improvement of our understanding of the role of ground deformation due to viscoelastic relaxation following eruptions is important, as the generated signals can resemble renewed magma inflow. We study post‐eruptive unrest at the subglacial Bárðarbunga volcano, Iceland, after a caldera collapse and major magma drainage in 2014–2015. Elevated seismicity began about 6 months after the eruption ended, including nine M
- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10385576
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Journal of Geophysical Research: Solid Earth
- Volume:
- 126
- Issue:
- 3
- ISSN:
- 2169-9313
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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Abstract Continental flood basalts intruded and erupted millions of km3of magma over ∼1–5 Ma. Previous work proposed the presence of large (
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Abstract Subduction zone accretionary prisms are commonly modeled as elastic structures where permanent deformation is accommodated by faulting and folding of otherwise elastic materials, yet accretionary prisms may exhibit other deformation styles over relatively short time scales. In this study, we use 6.5‐year (2014–2021) Sentinel‐1 interferometric synthetic aperture radar (InSAR) time‐series of post‐seismic deformation in the Makran accretionary prism of southeast Pakistan to characterize non‐linear viscoelastic deformation within an active accretionary prism on short timescales (months to years). We constructed a series of 3‐D finite‐element models of the Makran subduction zone, including an accretionary prism, and constrained the elastic thickness of the upper wedge and the flow‐law parameters (power‐law exponent, activation enthalpy, and pre‐exponential constant) of the lower wedge through forward model fits to the InSAR time‐series. Our results show that the prism is elastically thin (8–12 km) and the non‐linear viscoelastic relaxation of the deep portions of the prism alone can sufficiently explain the post‐seismic surface deformation. Our best fitting flow‐law parameters (
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