Announcing the 2016 Kleinman Grants for Volcano Research
*****************************************************************************************************
Announcing the 2016 Kleinman Grants for Volcano Research
The Community Foundation for Southwest Washington announces that the following students have been awarded 2016 Kleinman Grants for Volcano Research. Jack Kleinman was a USGS employee at the David. A. Johnston Cascades Volcano Observatory who died in a kayaking accident in 1994. By supporting field-oriented research projects in volcanology, the Kleinman Grants memorialize Jack’s exuberance for fieldwork, volcanoes, and the natural world. During the past 21 years, the program has helped dozens of aspiring volcanologists who seek to learn more about volcanoes and how they work.
Davis Deford is an M.S. student at Northern Arizona University whose research will focus on the Panther Meadow tephra at Mount Shasta. Davis will be working with Michael Ort, his research adviser, and with Cynthia Gardner and Jim Vallance at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory. Fieldwork will consist of mapping the unit and collecting samples of pumice. Lab work will consist of textural analysis of pumice samples and compositional analysis of melt inclusions. Airfall tephra layers are relatively rare at Mount Shasta, where most pyroclastic deposits are block-and-ash flows resulting from collapse of lava flows and domes. Study of the Panther Meadow tephra will further understanding of degassing and vesiculation mechanisms that support explosive eruptions at this mostly effusive volcano.
Janine Krippner is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Pittsburgh. With her adviser, Michael Ramsey, she is conducting a comparative study of deposits from pyroclastic density currents at Mount St. Helens, Washington, and Shiveluch Volcano, Alaska. The goal of the research is to develop a remote sensing methodology to rapidly identify such deposits at restless volcanoes whose eruptive history is poorly known. Such capability would be useful to the Volcano Disaster Assistance Program (VDAP), for example, during an evolving crisis at a volcano where fieldwork is impractical or especially hazardous. The method has been applied to Shiveluch already and will be extended to Mount St. Helens using a combination of aerial photo surveys from the 1980s, recent lidar data, and field work this summer.
Allan Lerner is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of Oregon working under the supervision of Paul Wallace and in conjunction with Peter Kelly at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory. Allan plans to develop and field test a gas bubbler system to measure sulfur isotopes in fumarole gas at Mount St. Helens. During field work this summer, the new system will be deployed at fumaroles on the 2004-2008 lava dome at Mount St. Helens. The ultimate goal of the research is to refine degassing models for high-threat U.S. volcanoes by integrating petrologic measurements from past eruptions with gas emission data being collected by the USGS.
Danielle Moyer is a Ph.D. candidate at Drexel University. With her research adviser, Loÿc Vanderkluysen, and in collaboration with Jake Lowenstern, USGS Yellowstone Volcano Observatory, Danielle will study active degassing at Yellowstone caldera using open path Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (OP-FTIR). A field survey this summer is designed to determine the concentration of carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and hydrogen sulfide emitted during active and passive degassing from several geysers, and to measure the gas flux from thermal pools in the Mud Volcano area. The geyser data will be used to derive a model of how gases are partitioned before, during, and after an eruption. At Mud Volcano, the thermal pools have a higher flux than the saturation level of current monitoring stations, so the true gas flux from the area is poorly known. The OP-FTIR measurements should help to resolve the resulting ambiguity.
Daniel Rasmussen is a Ph.D. student at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory. Working under the supervision of his research adviser, Terry Plank, Daniel is studying melt inclusions and chemical zonation in crystals from historical eruptions at Westdahl volcano, Alaska. Currently, the volatile contents of Westdahl magmas are completely unknown. With support from the USGS Alaska Volcano Observatory, he will collect samples of ash from the 1978 eruption of Westdahl, for which no samples currently exist. The goals of the research are to identify magmatic events that led to the eruption, measure the water contents of pre-eruptive magmas, determine where magma was stored prior to the 1978 eruption, and determine rates of magma ascent.
Cassandra Smith is a Ph.D. candidate at the University of South Florida. With her research adviser, Steve McNutt, and in collaboration with staff at the USGS Cascades Volcano Observatory, she will undertake a quantitative comparison of tephra characteristics from the 18 May 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, Washington, and recent explosive eruptions at Sakurajima volcano, Japan. The goals of the project are to explore a protocol for rapid tephra characterization, investigate time-dependent behavior of magma ascent and fragmentation, explore links between magma fragmentation and generation of volcanic lightning, and determine if there are any links between ash characteristics and the seismic and/or infrasonic signals generated during an eruption. During field work at Mount St. Helens this summer, Cassandra will collect samples from each subunit of the 18 May 1980 fall deposits for grain size and component analyses.
Congratulations to this year’s Kleinman Grant recipients. We look forward to hearing about your results at scientific meetings and reading about them in the research literature.
Volcano Listserv is a collaborative venture among Arizona State University (ASU), Portland State University (PSU), the Global Volcanism Program (GVP) of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History, and the International Association for Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior (IAVCEI).
ASU - http://www.asu.edu/ PSU - http://pdx.edu/ GVP - http://www.volcano.si.edu/ IAVCEI - http://www.iavcei.org/
To unsubscribe from the volcano list, send the message: signoff volcano to: listserv@xxxxxxx, or write to: volcano-request@xxxxxxx.
To contribute to the volcano list, send your message to: volcano@xxxxxxx. Please do not send attachments.
==============================================================
