 Okay, we're back. We're live one o'clock rock here on research in Manoa our weekly Monday show about science at UH It's specifically at the school of ocean ocean and earth science and at its division HIGP the Hawaii Institute of geophysics and planetology and an old friend joins us Andrea Gabrielli He's a research and a PhD candidate there. Well, last time he was around he came and talked to us about hyperspectral imaging of I guess volcanoes and lava and eruptions and all that and now we're talking about sort of the kissing cousin of that subject We're talking about magma chambers down below Exactly Jay. Great to be back. Thanks for having me here so magma chambers and the official title is Journeyed into the heart into the heart of the volcano. Wow. Yeah today. We're gonna go the Last time we talked about as you said hyperspectral imaging and how we could actually map Volcanic gases what they could tell us about Eruptions and all that but today we're gonna go within the volcano So we're gonna talk about what happens below the crust within the edifice of the volcano This is very interesting stuff because I you know people don't really know they just know that the volcano erupts That's what volcanoes do, but we're talking about the the process of eruption before it happens exactly And and if we can have maybe the the first slide up, okay, we can see you have some slides Oops, what is that now? Well, this is a very familiar View for for those of us who live in Hawaii this is the summit of Kilauea volcano and You can see that's the Halema Oma event within the vent There is another crater. They call it the overlook vent That's where there is the lava lake from which you can see the reddish glow coming from it. So Magma chambers this this magma this magma comes from within the volcano and particularly there are lots of sources and Hawaii for example, it comes from the the so-called hot spot Which is stationary with respect to the Pacific plate that moves so this is why we have an island chains For example in other areas we we can have a subduction zone So a plate Subducting beneath another one. Yeah, yes, and then this huge forces involved huge huge forces Huge earthquakes that the energy can be can be released But also the material that go down is partially melt It may the as it goes down the pressure increases and and it gets hot And so this material can rise again for with buoyancy towards the surface and that's the phenomenon that originate for example volcanism on the Cascades So I think mountains the cascade mountains from in Washington, Oregon and northern California So such as Mount Rainier who the lesson or St. Helens? Yeah, well, I have so many questions about these magma chambers. First of all How deep are they? I mean are they right below the surface? So they write below where the lava is erupting out of the volcano. Are they way down there? There are the depth of course Changes for for these magma chambers and that there can be multiple magma chambers in a volcano as well That's actually what we have here at Kilauea volcano because we have multiple magma chambers within the same edifice and people are mapping these Thanks to earthquakes because as a seismic waves Travel to into the into the edifice of the volcano once the the rock breaks and the waves are propagating the velocity of these waves change With the the with the material so if it's liquid if it's solid if it's partially melt The velocity is different. So that's how people can map these magma chamber Okay, but hyperspectral imaging not going to help you you have to have different tools than for eruption itself There are a variety of tools that are used to forecast the volcanic eruptions this This work we're doing here at the University of Hawaii with hyperspectral imaging can help us Detecting gases and so and gases can help us in in fear. What's going on within the volcano? So what's the principle if I see a certain gas coming out now? It's not erupting yet, right? It's but I see a certain gas coming out This is going to tell you that it will erupt and it's going to tell you something about the chamber below How do you determine that? It's that it's the depth of Exolution of the these gases from the magma from the bulk of the maximum. So how do you spell that? Ex s o l u t i o n okay Nobody knew that before that's basically as the magma rises towards the surface The pressure decreases. So as the pressure decreases gases are being released are exalted from the main bulk of the magma and the interesting thing is that these gases Exolve are released at different depths. So this is can tell us where the magma that is D-gassing is actually as we measure these gases on the surface And it comes through the rock the gas comes through the rock comes through the rocks right up and and this and this journey We're gonna go into a magma chamber. So this journey starts in the city of Lancaster That's in the northwestern part of England. That's where I started. That's where I did my master with Professor Lionel Wilson Who is also a visiting professor here at the University of Hawaii and so if we can have there it is here That's that's Lancaster. That's the beautiful city of Lancaster It was founded in the in the first century as a Roman Fort permanent Roman Fort you can see on the left of the Tower Bell of the Cathedral in the center the 12 the the castle which dates back to the 12th century and The Revolune on the right that goes into the more came Bay But what we're interested in today are The mountains that you can that you can barely see in the background of these images There's a red circle where I drew the red circle. That's right. That's where we're going because this area is Is that is the British Lake District? That's an area that were that that was Chanted by the romantic poets Collarage Samuel Taylor color agent William Wordsworth. It's a beautiful. It's a beautiful area, but 450 million years ago at the in the early Ordovichian period. That's what they call it that area was actually a volcanic arc, so it was characterized by volcanic eruption and the geology is similar to the volcanic arc of islands that we can see in the West Pacific today and Was an area and and so of course the now after 450 million years ago volcanoes The are of course inactive. They're not active anymore But the landscape that that is still there is amazing for geology research And there are field trips from from the local University. They are the University of Lancaster and people can go and really understand how Volcanoes work from beneath and so when you don't think of you know England or London or Lancaster as a place of Volcanoes and eruptions, but they were they were and and there is a very nice place in Edinburgh in the city of Edinburgh in Scotland that the castle the main castle of the city is built on a on a on a on a volcanic Structure so that that's when you go there you enjoy the castle But some people are not aware that it's actually built on what? Historically was an ancient volcano. So if you have a volcano Including an ancient volcano you always have a magma chamber below, right? You cannot have a volcano and an eruption without having a magma chamber below my right usually as the as the Activity the volcanism develops in an area the magma tends to rise and then form this this magma pools Where the magma is gathered and a stationary so yeah, usually we do have these and North of England if we go to these mountains in Cumbria We can see exactly how a magma chamber looked like and it might be different from what you might expect Okay, if we have that Here we go That's a that's a chamber orchestra Well of course 450 million years ago the orchestra wasn't there I guarantee this is the chamber playing in the chamber That's right, that's right But this this this area this area so this is a mine This is a slate mine in Cumbria Honister mine and It's a slate mine so people go there to extract this late material But this whole area was formed during volcanic eruptions and Particularly we are we're interested in the in the ceiling in the background of this image You can see the ceiling it's tilted that that's a 30 degrees angle. Yeah, and that's a sill That's a magmatic sill. It's not slate itself It's not slated the slate was created that over million of years of years by Metamorphism so not only the the original magma, but the the the the initial rock that the breeze from the eruptions within this volcano where Deformed by heat and pressure over million of years, and that's what created the slate, but the volcanic Structure is still there. Yeah, now, you know, if the orchestra the chamber orchestra could go down in there It's not that far below the surface, right? It's not far below the surface and in the and usually they organize these events during the summer because it's quite an interesting Area acoustics must be beautiful I bet yeah So the seal the the rock we're looking at this this this in the background that that's basically a Sill so we're talking about a body of magma that was intruded horizontally within two existing layers of rocks So a magma chamber is not actually as some people Might think during simplification. We try to simplify, but sometimes we oversimplify It's not actually a body a spherical body of magma Within the volcano. It's much more complex. It's a river of magma It's it's an ensemble of these structures So say ensemble ensemble that they use that term in connection with orchestras So that's why we have so it all connects. It's all to get all connect. I know It's a it's a it's a an ensemble of these Structure I was showing you in the pictures of the orchestra So an ensemble of sills, which are this body of magmas that were intruded horizontally and also dykes Which is kind of the same thing, but they're smaller and they're usually vertical Yeah, so it's an ensemble of these features and it we in the in the next slide We can actually see a diagram So there this is this is a scheme. This is a diagram It's a figure showing how a magma chamber might actually look like so you can see it's not an ellipsoid It's not a sphere, but it's it's a it's a combination of all these dykes and sills Within that within the edifice of the volcano now we saw a picture So we know that you know the floor of the ceiling is so far apart, you know It looked like 20 30 feet maybe But it could be bigger or it could be smaller, right? Absolutely, it's this it's difficult to usually people talk about Diameter, but as I said, it's little they can we can talk about the diameter of the whole Of the whole material which include both the material that is melt and The material that is partially melt. So once I was having a conversation with a Petrologist here at University of Hawaii and we were talking about different size different hypothesis because the geophysical the geophysical Instruments your physical instrument tell you the difference in velocity of the of the seismic waves So that gives you an estimate of the volume of the of the material But that gives you the estimate of the material that is melt and also the material that is partially melt So is it and so Petrologist usually focus on both In the in the in the work I've been doing in England what we considered was just the melt Not the partially melt So we wanted to avoid that because it was more complicated to model we try to simplify it a little bit But still having a reliable result. We tested these models on Kilauea and and other volcanoes to try and really understand What happens as the magma chamber gets pressurized? so pressure is one thing that It's a it's a factor in the development of the chamber in the size of the chamber the way that the pseudo pods reach out You know the little tributaries reach out But there's another you mentioned also the seismic activity So it sounds like it's pressure and it's also a combination of pressure and seismic activity That pushed the magma against the wall of the chamber now and gases as well and gases In the picture in the figure we showed below We were looking at this magma chamber and then as the magma chamber Inflates because more material is added comes from beneath and is added to the chamber then The pressure increase increases as you said, but also it inflates So this inflation caused the ruptures and in the in the rocks surrounding the magma chains And so that's how we have earthquakes. So we have earthquake. So what volcanologists are interested in? our three main things to try and and and Forecast these eruptions the first one is the formation So they measure how the edifice how the shape of the edifice is changing And so they and they can tell this by measuring gravity using tilt emitters and other instruments But also there can't go in there, right? You can't go in a magma chamber Well, you can go if it's if it's empty as the one as you want in Cumbria as the one in Cumbria It's got hot magma. That's not a good idea Not a good idea and you can't put instruments in there either because it's too hot, right? But the beauty hot is it well the the temperature of the magma is 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit and rock and it is rock and magma is magma is a as a combination of rock rock melt melted rocks and gases which are dissolved into this liquid into this hot liquid melt and So the first one as I said is earth deformation and then we have earthquakes activity and the third component of of this This measurements that volcanologists do is actually gases so we have three three Things that we can measure to try and forecast how this magma is moving within the within these chambers Okay, we're gonna when you come back. We're gonna find out the characteristics of that movement We're also gonna find out what happens when the hot magma, you know touches the edges of the chamber What happens? What kind of reaction happens there and how come you can have a chamber orchestra within the chamber? And it does not falling down on you. Okay, just asking just curious questions here on think-tech Andrea Gabrielli a researcher at HIGP at Sowest on Research of Innova. We'll be right back for more Hi, I'm Stacy Hayashi and you can catch me on Mondays at 11 on think-tech Hawaii Stacey to the rescue. See you then Aloha, I'm Kaley Akina president of the grassroot Institute If you want to be an informed citizen We invite you to watch every week as we bring wonderful guests together on a HANA Kakao a weekly program on the think-tech Hawaii broadcast network every Monday at 2 o'clock PM We talk with people who know what they're talking about when it comes to the economy or the government or to building a better society So we'll see you then on a HANA Kakao, which means let's work together every Monday at 2 o'clock PM On the think-tech Hawaii broadcast network. Aloha Okay, we're back. We're live with Andrea Gabrielli a researcher at HIGP the Hawai'i Institute of Geophysics and Plenitology here on our Monday show at 1 o'clock every Monday researched in Manoa and As we left this exciting journey. It was a journey into the chamber into the heart of the volcano We're talking about you know these these three things you can measure and My curiosity point is exactly how does that magma affect the walls of the chamber? Does it burn them off? Does it make them so hot they become part of the magma or you know Does the chamber cool the magma and what happens at the point of contact? The point that's an excellent question That's what we're we're actually trying to do with this modeling of chambers. This is what pathologists do basically the Rock that surrounds the magma chamber gets hot as you said because of the contact with the magma within the chamber and then Because of the pressure it is subjected to it can go and and and be Metamorphosed so the the the nature of this rock is changed by the heat and the pressure But as you move as you move away from the from the chamber and the temperature decreases Then you have a brittle a brittle a behavior of these rocks those fingers that are moving away That's that's going to be cooler than in the center of the chamber and in the center and as these these fingers this this Dyches and cells propagate through the these layers these layers of existing rocks then There are earthquakes and and it's brittle But the material that is closer to the chamber is actually partially melt So the deformation is more plastic But then as you go away it becomes brittle it can break and so we have earthquakes and and other activity You know I had one question has to come up is that in that in that picture that graphic We just looked at it's really to me an important picture that we to understand you show a flow of magma coming from Down below And it's coming in a fairly defined pathway there How does how does where does it come from and how does it move and does it burn up everything in its path? Or does that path already exist? Again, usually it's it's a it's formed this conduit that we talk about is actually formed by many dykes so these These fingers we can call them that propagates through existing layers of rock But it's usually as I said many dykes that propagate and those are bigger dykes than the little finger dykes Usually you can go on the east side here on Oahu there. There are some exposed Dykes from the ancient koalau volcano or you can go towards the Waianae coast and even there there are some Towards kahena point. There are some pretty impressive dice. Usually they are two three meters in Size but they can be kilometers long, but the thickness is usually two three meters Kilometers long, I mean horizontal direction in and they're like a Curtain so they're like for example the the thickness is like two three meters, but then they extend Yeah, like that for four But are you saying that in the center of the earth? There is one great big magma chamber and it expresses itself In fingers of one of larger size and then smaller size all the way up The this magma It has different origins, but particularly for example here in Hawaii the magma is originating down within the mantle So not at the center the center is solid. It's a nickel and iron Sphere that rotates very quickly and creates a geomagnetic Field of the earth, but that's solid what creates the heat of the magma that is above that core The so this dates back to the formation of the of the solar system 4.5 billion years ago when millions of these tiny little objects and called planetesimals where Colliding and through a creation they form the planets now as the planet was becoming bigger and also became Sphere more spherical the pressure and the heat within this the center of the planet Basically is still trapped there today and that's part that's basically 20% of the heat budget that from the from from from a planet the rest comes from radioactive decay of elements of heavier elements the 70 yeah I mean we have radioactive elements in the down toward when you get down toward the core Not towards the core this this is we're talking about the mantle so we have we have the the inner core The outer core and then the mantel's we're talking about but for example as I said in the cascades or in other locations The origin of the magma is much more superficial as much more is as this this 90 80 90 kilometers below the crust That's where the magma from the subduction zone is melted and then it can it can go up again So the the but the core is actually Solid and it's not hot and it's very hot Very hot but it's solid okay, but it's solid now you were talking about these three ways that you can do scientific investigation on the material in the in the in the in the magma chamber What kind of instruments do you use in order to measure those three? Indicators, oh we measure we measure size smaller we use size Instruments to develop to measure seismic waves the seismographs we use As I said earlier till timeters we use that That's to for measure the formation and we use also FTIR fully transform spectrometers to try and measure gases or hyperspectral. That's a new technology. We're testing But these three techniques to measure How the edifice of the volcano behaves in response to the inflation of the magma chamber Are also particularly useful to study external stresses What could cause a trigger of a volcanic eruption because sometimes? That the inner pressure is not enough to trigger actually trigger a volcanic eruptions And I believe we have a slide that that will bring us to oh here we go. This is ethna volcano So here we go back to Italy and you can see in this image We are looking at the north northern Slope of the of the of the volcano. That's the northern flank. Well, what mountain is this etna? That's a volcano in Italy in southern in Sicily You can see next to the center of the image a little bit towards the left. That's the summit It's covered in snow You can see there is a vent that is degassing and the top of the vent that is Is is not covered in snow because the soil the rocks are hot over there But what I want to draw your attention to is the red line That I drew that line is basically a fault. It's a line of fault So it's zone of weakness within the volcano now What happens is that the flank of volcanoes can move along these zones of weakness And so if for example, there was a Lens slide or an event that could move the flank of the volcano then There would be a depressurization of the magma chamber and that could induce an eruption so for example on How do you tell where it went draw that line because we can see these these fractures within the rocks You can eyeball them we can we can walk we can see fishers we can see fishers and cracks That's how you determine so we use there or you're looking for a photo. We were there. We were there Okay, but we were we also look at these movements from satellites so we can tell whether the the flank of a volcano is moving by also looking at differences from satellites and and and and and measure these things that but the Interesting part is that for example an example of this this depressurization of the edifice is actually on May the 18th 1980 when Mount St. Helens started to erupt the actual that the initial blast that if you remember the picture was Horizontal the the mountain the eruption started the blast was horizontal because it was not actually triggered by The pressure of the magma within the chamber. It was actually triggered by a landslide So the volcano was caused by an earthquake from the magma which was caused by an earthquake Okay, so the the the mountain was already pressurized the volcano was already pressurized because of the because of the magma that was injected and The northern flank of the volcano was really the formed and on that morning There was a strong earthquake that the northern flank of the volcano started to slide down Over-existing layers of rocks subduction. Oh, no, then we're here. We're talking about the subduction is between plates Here we're talking about an edifice of a volcano. So we're talking about the landslide. That's a different Okay, yeah, okay, but this this this movement this movement of the of the edifice of the volcano That's slide it down cause that the compression of the chamber and so that induced up the the main blast The the main explosion of mountain so the different these these experiences these phenomenon are different I wanted to ask you one more question before we go and that is Are you now in a better position to predict where and when and how forceful of volcanic eruption will be because of this technology? We we are definitely trying to do our best to predict volcanic eruptions Of course, there's still the much still to be undiscovered the still much to be investigated But but we're for sure we are on the right track because with this technology with these new instrument We can really peek into the earth into the earth into the heart of the volcano as you were saying and so we can We can understand Really the dynamics of what happens within the volcano and one thing is clear volcanic eruptions aren't going away anytime soon We're gonna have more we're gonna need to predict them. That's Andrea Gabrieli He's a researcher Gabrielle. He's a researcher at HIGP the Hawaiians to geophysics and planetology That's so west here on research in Manoa and we want you to come back again soon We want to follow everything you do. Thank you very much Andrea Thank you. Thank you Jay