A lava fountain during the 1959 eruption of Kilauea Iki. (Image credit: USGS)
A lava fountain during the 1959 eruption of Kilauea Iki. (Image credit: USGS) Stanford researchers used millimeter-sized crystals from the 1959 eruption of Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano to test models that offer insights about flow conditions prior to and during an eruption. Scientists striving to understand how and when volcanoes might erupt face a challenge: many of the processes take place deep underground in lava tubes churning with dangerous molten Earth. Upon eruption, any subterranean markers that could have offered clues leading up to a blast are often destroyed. But by leveraging observations of tiny crystals of the mineral olivine formed during a violent eruption that took place in Hawaii more than half a century ago, Stanford University researchers have found a way to test computer models of magma flow, which they say could reveal fresh insights about past eruptions and possibly help predict future ones. "We can actually infer quantitative attributes of the flow prior to eruption from this crystal data and learn about the processes that led to the eruption without drilling into the volcano," said Jenny Suckale , an assistant professor of geophysics at Stanford's School of Earth, Energy & Environmental Sciences (Stanford Earth). "That to me is the Holy Grail in volcanology." The millimeter-sized crystals were discovered entombed in lava after the 1959 eruption of Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii.
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