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Abstract The effects of pyroclastic density currents (PDCs) can be devastating, so understanding their internal dynamics and evolution is important for hazard assessment. We use damaged trees located around Mount St. Helens (USA) as proxy for the dynamic pressure ( P dyn ) of the PDC erupted on 18 May 1980. We recorded the location, distribution, and foliage preservation of damaged trees within the medial and distal parts of the devastated forest. Sub-meter resolution aerial photographs from a month after the eruption allow distinction between standing trees that retained foliage from those that were stripped. Heights of standing trees were estimated from the measured lengths of their shadows. The number of standing trees was counted within defined areas along the propagation paths of PDCs. From the measured tree heights, we estimated tree toppling stresses from P dyn . Overall, P dyn of the PDC head within the medial to distal portions of the blowdown zone ranged from 10 to 35 kPa. P dyn likely waned with distance, as shown by the increased number of standing trees in the outer parts of the devastated area. In addition, we find clusters of standing trees on the lee sides of some hills. We propose that these clusters survived because they were primarily impacted by lower dynamic pressures extant within the PDC body, with foliage retention or stripping as a function of the P dyn evolution in the PDC body. We estimate that P dyn of the body was less than the estimated maximum P dyn of the PDC head by 12 ± 4 kPa. 

Abstract Acoustic compressional and shear wave velocities (VP, VS) of anhydrous (AHRG) and hydrous rhyolitic glasses (HRG) containing 3.28 wt% (HRG-3) and 5.90 wt% (HRG-6) total water concentration (H2Ot) have been measured using Brillouin light scattering (BLS) spectroscopy up to 3 GPa in a diamond-anvil cell at ambient temperature. In addition, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was used to measure the speciation of H2O in the glasses up to 3 GPa. At ambient pressure, HRG-3 contains 1.58 (6) wt% hydroxyl groups (OH–) and 1.70 (7) wt% molecular water (H2Om) while HRG-6 contains 1.67 (10) wt% OH– and 4.23 (17) wt% H2Om where the numbers in parentheses are ±1σ. With increasing pressure, very little H2Om, if any, converts to OH– within uncertainties in hydrous rhyolitic glasses such that HRG-6 contains much more H2Om than HRG-3 at all experimental pressures. We observe a nonlinear relationship between high-pressure sound velocities and H2Ot, which is attributed to the distinct effects of each water species on acoustic velocities and elastic moduli of hydrous glasses. Near ambient pressure, depolymerization due to OH– reduces VS and G more than VP and KS. VP and KS in both anhydrous and hydrous glasses decrease with increasing pressure up to ~1–2 GPa before increasing with pressure. Above ~1–2 GPa, VP and KS in both hydrous glasses converge with those in AHRG. In particular, VP in HRG-6 crosses over and becomes higher than VP in AHRG. HRG-6 displays lower VS and G than HRG-3 near ambient pressure, but VS and G in these glasses converge above ~2 GPa. Our results show that hydrous rhyolitic glasses with ~2–4 wt% H2Om can be as incompressible as their anhydrous counterpart above ~1.5 GPa. The nonlinear effects of hydration on high-pressure acoustic velocities and elastic moduli of rhyolitic glasses observed here may provide some insight into the behavior of hydrous silicate melts in felsic magma chambers at depth. 

Abstract Following rapid decompression in the conduit of a volcano, magma breaks into ash- to block-sized fragments, powering explosive sub-Plinian and Plinian eruptions that may generate destructive pyroclastic falls and flows. It is thus crucial to assess how magma breaks up into fragments. This task is difficult, however, because of the subterranean nature of the entire process and because the original size of pristine fragments is modified by secondary fragmentation and expansion. New textural observations of sub-Plinian and Plinian pumice lapilli reveal that some primary products of magma fragmentation survive by sintering together within seconds of magma break-up. Their size distributions reflect the energetics of fragmentation, consistent with products of rapid decompression experiments. Pumice aggregates thus offer a unique window into the previously inaccessible primary fragmentation process and could be used to determine the potential energy of fragmentation. 

Dense, vitric, dacitic pyroclasts (dacite lithics) from the 1991 preclimactic explosions of Mt. Pinatubo were analyzed for their vesicular and crystal textures and dissolved H2O and CO2 contents. Micron-scale heterogeneities in groundmass glass volatile contents (0.9 wt% differences in H2O within 500 μm) are observed and argue that parts of the dacite lithics equilibrated at different depths before finally being constructed. Greater vesicularities and larger and greater number densities of vesicles are observed in groundmass glass around phenocrysts compared to groundmass glass away from phenocrysts, similar to textures produced in experiments that sintered bimodal distributions of particles. Furthermore, increasingly greater proportions of stretched and distorted vesicles are observed in lithics from the later explosions, which parallels the increasingly shorter reposes between explosions. Finally, micron-sized crystal fragments are ubiquitous in groundmass glass of all dacite lithics. The textures, together with the variable volatile contents, lead us to propose a model that the dacite lithics formed by rapid and repetitive sintering of ash particles derived from a variety of depths on the conduit walls above the fragmentation level. We speculate that sintering of conduit material produced impermeable layers that retarded gas flow through the conduit, causing pressure to build until the cap failed and the next explosion occurred. 

Magma from Plinian volcanic eruptions contains an extraordinarily large numbers of bubbles. Nucleation of those bubbles occurs because pressure decreases as magma rises to the surface. As a consequence, dissolved magmatic volatiles, such as water, become supersaturated and cause bubbles to nucleate. At the same time, diffusion of volatiles into existing bubbles reduces supersaturation, resulting in a dynamical feedback between rates of nucleation due to magma decompression and volatile diffusion. Because nucleation rate increases with supersaturation, bubble number density (BND) provides a proxy record of decompression rate, and hence the intensity of eruption dynamics. Using numerical modeling of bubble nucleation, we reconcile a long-standing discrepancy in decompression rate estimated from BND and independent geospeedometers. We demonstrate that BND provides a record of the time-averaged decompression rate that is consistent with independent geospeedometers, if bubble nucleation is heterogeneous and facilitated by magnetite crystals.

 

Bubble nucleation is the critical first step during magma degassing. The resultant number density of bubbles provides a record of nucleation kinetics and underlying eruptive conditions. The rate of bubble nucleation is strongly dependent on the surface free energy associated with nucleus formation, making the use of bubble number density for the interpretation of eruptive conditions contingent upon a sound understanding of surface tension. Based on a suite of nucleation experiments with up to >10¹⁶bubbles per unit volume of melt, and using numerical simulations of bubble nucleation and growth during each experiment, we provide a new formulation for surface tension during homogeneous nucleation of H₂O bubbles in rhyolitic melt. It is based on the Tolman correction with a Tolman length ofδ = 0.32 nm, which implies an increase in surface tension of bubbles with decreasing nucleus size. Our model results indicate that experiments encompass two distinct nucleation regimes, distinguishable by the ratio of the characteristic diffusion time of water,τ_diff, to the decompression time,t_d. Experiments with >10¹³ m⁻³bubbles are characterized byτ_diff/t_d≪ 1, wherein the nucleation rate predominantly depends on the interplay between decompression and diffusion rates. Nucleation occurs over a short time interval with nucleation rate peaks at high values. For experiments with comparatively low bubble number density the average distance between adjacent bubbles and the diffusion timescale is large. Consequently,τ_diff/t_d≫ 1 and nucleation is nearly unaffected by diffusion and independent of decompression rate, with bubbles nucleating at an approximately constant rate until the sample is quenched.