In collaboration with:
Dr Thomas J. Jones is an Associate Professor (Reader) in Volcanology at Lancaster University and a UK Research and Innovation Future Leaders Fellow. He has a broad set of research interests but is primarily interested in magma fragmentation both on Earth and on other planets, how volcanic ash is dispersed, and the generation of volcanic hazard maps.
Dr Pier Paolo Comida is a research technician in Volcanology at Lancaster University. He is passionate about mafic volcanic eruptions, their dynamics and associated risk. His research involves a mix of fieldwork and laboratory activity with a focus on magmatic and hydromagmatic fragmentation through the morphology of pyroclasts and analogue experiments.
Dr Pablo Gonzalez, Volcano Geophysicist, Spanish National Research Council (CSIC), is a Senior Researcher in Geodynamics and Structure of the Lithosphere at the Volcanological Research Group in the Spanish National Research Council (IPNA-CSIC).
Over 29 million people worldwide live within just 10 km of active volcanoes, and good, widely-disseminated information is key to mitigating risk. The Canary Islands are an active volcanic region, but much of the population does not know enough about the potential hazards or risks involved. Through our work promoting our 2022 film Lava Bombs (see www.lavabombsfilm.com) on the eruption of the volcano in Cumbre Vieja in La Palma in 2021 and research carried out in our 2022 programmes, we are deeply conscious of the lack of information in the general population here and in other volcanic territories where many of our past GeoIntern students are from.
How do you quantify volcanic risk in a territory? And how do you ensure a population is fully informed and resilient, especially when volcanic eruptions do not happen very often? This year, our work will be focused on Garachico in advance of a full-scale eruption exercise to be carried out by the Canary Island authorities in the town in September 2025. We aim to quantify the degree of readiness of the local population and the extent of ashfall impact from the 1706 eruption, which affected the town and the surrounding area.
Evidence from historical eruptions is commonly used to inform volcanic hazard maps and risk assessments. Quantifying what eruptions have done in the past (e.g., their volume, the distance travelled by lava flows, the thickness of tephra deposited, the eruption duration) provides a range of plausible scenarios for the future. In this project, you will support ongoing efforts to determine these ‘eruption source parameters’ for eruptions on Tenerife. Specifically, you will conduct fieldwork on a number of historical mafic eruptions (i.e., those that erupted in the 1700s and 1900s). The focus will be on their explosive (i.e., ash or tephra producing) eruption phases and you will learn how to (i) map the extent of tephra/ash in the field; (ii) map and measure the volume of tephra emitted during these eruptions and (iii) identify deposits from different and sequential eruption phases. Using these field data, you will be able to reconstruct the likely eruption column heights and determine the eruption magnitude and the volcanic explosivity index, aiding our understanding of past mafic volcanism on Tenerife.
You will also be carrying out a short survey with the population to inform IGN, the Spanish National Geographic Institute, of the level of preparedness of the local population in advance of the eruption exercise later this year.
This important ongoing research project will help to inform residents and the authorities of Tenerife. Previous years’ survey research produced interesting results. The 2022 GeoInterns were co-authors on this paper, which was published on ResearchGate, and last year’s research was presented at VulcanaSymposium by our local scholar Javi Diaz. Our research enables us to collaborate with a range of institutions and emergency managers in advance of a future eruption on the island.