Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2023
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
https://doi.org/10.1029/2023GL102763
Abstract
Understanding the forces and magma system dynamics on timescales of seconds to minutes remains challenging. In the January 2022 phreatoplinian Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai eruption, four remarkably similar seismic subevents within a 5-min interval occurred during the intensifying early eruptive phase. The subevents are similar in waveforms and durations (∼25 s each). Each subevent begins with an unusual negative P-wave polarity which is inferred, using full-wave seismic modeling, to be caused by an upward single-force mechanism at the volcano created by a magma hammer likely in response to magma flow blockage/constriction during the early part of the eruption as discharge rapidly increased over orders of magnitude with concomitant conduit geometry evolution and instability. Our proposed episodic magma hammer model is consistent with thermodynamic and phase properties of the magmatic mixture, and yields an estimate of conduit mass flow in agreement with vent discharge rates derived from satellite imagery of plume heights.
Was this content written or created while at USF?
Yes
Citation / Publisher Attribution
Geophysical Research Letters, v. 50, issue 8, art. e2023GL102763
Scholar Commons Citation
Zheng, Yingcai; Hu, Hao; Spera, Frank J.; Scruggs, Melissa; Thompson, Glenn; Jin, Yuesu; Lapen, Tom; McNutt, Stephen R.; Mandli, Kyle; Peng, Zhigang; and Yuen, Dave A., "Episodic Magma Hammers for the 15 January 2022 Cataclysmic Eruption of Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai" (2023). School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications. 2404.
https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/geo_facpub/2404
Supporting Information
