The fate of volcanic ash: premature or delayed sedimentation?

Eduardo Rossi (), Gholamhossein Bagheri, Frances Beckett and Costanza Bonadonna
Additional contact information
Eduardo Rossi: University of Geneva
Gholamhossein Bagheri: Max Planck Inst. Dynam. & Self Org.
Frances Beckett: Met Office
Costanza Bonadonna: University of Geneva

Nature Communications, 2021, vol. 12, issue 1, 1-9

Abstract: Abstract A large amount of volcanic ash produced during explosive volcanic eruptions has been found to sediment as aggregates of various types that typically reduce the associated residence time in the atmosphere (i.e., premature sedimentation). Nonetheless, speculations exist in the literature that aggregation has the potential to also delay particle sedimentation (rafting effect) even though it has been considered unlikely so far. Here, we present the first theoretical description of rafting that demonstrates how delayed sedimentation may not only occur but is probably more common than previously thought. The fate of volcanic ash is here quantified for all kind of observed aggregates. As an application to the case study of the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull volcano (Iceland), we also show how rafting can theoretically increase the travel distances of particles between 138–710 μm. These findings have fundamental implications for hazard assessment of volcanic ash dispersal as well as for weather modeling.

Date: 2021
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-021-21568-8 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:12:y:2021:i:1:d:10.1038_s41467-021-21568-8

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/s41467-021-21568-8

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().