Kinematic Modeling of Pyroclastic Flows Produced by Gravitational Dome Collapse at Soufriere Hills Volcano, Montserrat

Donald Hooper and Glen Mattioli

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards, 2001, vol. 23, issue 1, 65-86

Abstract: Volcanic activity commenced 18 July 1995 at SoufriereHills volcano and has led to the creation of a newlava dome, which has repeatedly collapsed between 1996and 1999 resulting in highly mobile pyroclastic flows. The majority of associated pyroclastic flow phenomenaare consistent with initiation by gravitationalcollapse as blocks fall from oversteepened flanks ofthe new dome. If gravity controls the energy transferof such collapses, then areas likely to be affectedcan be predicted on the basis of topography. We focuson `dense' flows initiated by non-explosive,gravitational collapse (`Merapi-type' pyroclasticflows) and employ a graphical computer model (Flow3D)written to simulate this type of volcanic flow. Theprogram constructs a digital terrain model based upona 3D network of (x, y, z) triplets, which serves as thebasis for the numerical computations. A synthetic domewas added to the topographic model to improve theaccuracy of the simulations. After estimating thesmall number of key adjustable parameters, simulatedflow pathways, runout distances, and velocitiesclosely approximated observed Merapi-type pyroclasticflows on Montserrat. These simulations demonstrate thevalidity of a simple kinematic method to model densepyroclastic flow phenomena. While the simulationspresented here do not elucidate additional physics ofpyroclastic flow phenomena, this type of modeling canbe completed easily and without extensivea priori knowledge of volcano-specific parameters otherthan topography. Accordingly, it may serve as a rapidand inexpensive first-order approach for initialhazard assessment. Copyright Kluwer Academic Publishers 2001

Keywords: Montserrat; Soufriere Hills volcano; pyroclastic flow; lava dome; kinematic model; volcanic hazards; computer simulation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2001
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://hdl.handle.net/10.1023/A:1008130605558 (text/html)
Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.

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:spr:nathaz:v:23:y:2001:i:1:p:65-86

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11069

DOI: 10.1023/A:1008130605558

Access Statistics for this article

Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards is currently edited by Thomas Glade, Tad S. Murty and Vladimír Schenk

More articles in Natural Hazards: Journal of the International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards from Springer, International Society for the Prevention and Mitigation of Natural Hazards
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().