physically based modeling of bedrock incision by abrasion plucking and macroabrasion 1 many important insights into the dynamic coupling among climate erosion and tectonics in mountain areas have derived from several numerical models of the past few decades which include descriptions of bedrock incision however many questions regarding incision processes and morphology of bedrock streams still remain unanswered a more mechanistically based incision model is needed as a component to study landscape evolution major bedrock incision processes include among other mechanisms abrasion by bed load plucking and macroabrasion a process of fracturing of the bedrock into pluckable sizes mediated by particle impacts the purpose of this paper is to develop a physically based model of bedrock incision that includes all three processes mentioned above to build the model we start by developing a theory of abrasion plucking and macroabrasion mechanisms we then incorporate hydrology the evaluation of boundary shear stress capacity transport an entrainment relation for pluckable particles a routing model linking in stream sediment and hillslopes a formulation for alluvial channel coverage a channel width relation hack s law and exner equation into the model so that we can simulate the evolution of bedrock channels the model successfully simulates various features of bed elevation profiles of natural bedrock rivers under a variety of input or boundary conditions the results also illustrate that knickpoints found in bedrock rivers may be autogenic in addition to being driven by base level fall and lithologic changes this supports the concept that bedrock incision by knickpoint migration may be an integral part of normal incision processes the model is expected to improve the current understanding of the linkage among physically meaningful input parameters the physics of incision process and morphological changes in bedrock streams

origin of the giant eruption cloud of pinatubo june 15 1991 the series of eruptions of june 15 1991 at mt pinatubo philippines were observed hourly by satellite a giant discshaped cloud covering an area of 60 000 km2 appeared in the satellite images at 14 40 philippine time the cloud expanded radially against wind of 20 m s and spread to an area of more than 120 000 km2 within an hour according to eyewitness accounts there was heavy fine ash fall after 14 00 intermittent lapilli fall started at about 14 20 and heavy and continuous lapilli fall widely started at about 15 00 the occurrence of the giant cloud roughly corresponded to the initiation of the intermittent lapilli fall the air fall deposits of the major eruption are widely distributed including upwind from the vent they are composed of 3 units a silt size fine ash layer layer b a lapilli layer commonly including pumice grains of 1 cm in diameter layer c a lapilli bearing volcanic sand layer layer d judging from its wide distribution and depletion of coarse grains most of the fine ash of layer b is not distal deposits of a small eruption but is originated from a large co ignimbrite cloud it is suggested that the major eruption started with the generation of a pyroclastic flow which was subsequently followed by a plinian eruption resulting in the formation of the giant cloud and the lapilli fall the results of calculations on the dynamics of eruption cloud indicate that the dimension and dynamics of the giant eruption cloud is accounted for by a plinian eruption with a magma discharge rate of the order of 109 kg s

complexities of plinian fall deposition at vent an example from the 1912 novarupta eruption alaska abstract an extremely proximal ejecta ring with exposures to within 100 m of vent was deposited during later stage plinian fall activity during the 1912 novarupta eruption in alaska one bed in the ejecta ring bed s contains predominantly andesitic clasts which serve to delineate the striking contrast in thinning rates along dispersal axis of the ejecta ring pyle bt values of 70 m bed s alone or 190 m whole ejecta ring and the coeval dacitic plinian fall deposits pyle bt values of 4 km proximal and 37 km medial distal the locally deposited andesitic and dacitic clasts of the ejecta ring are interpreted as products of an irregular collar of low fountaining ejecta partially sheathing the core of higher velocity dacitic ejecta that fed the stable converting 23 km high column the presence of such an extremely proximal accumulation of ejecta appears to be a feature common to several other historic eruptions that generated widespread fall deposits this feature in part accounts for conflicts between measured and calculated values for thickness maxima in plinian fall deposits and suggests that modifications may be required of existing models for plinian eruption columns

crystal settling in a vigorously converting magma chamber there has been much debate concerning the mechanism of fractional crystallization in magma chambers the traditional hypothesis of crystal settling has been widely replaced by the concept of in situ crystallization coupled with compositional convection observations from layered intrusions however are equivocal1 4 doubts have been raised about crystal settling on theoretical grounds because convective velocities in magma chambers are often much greater than the crystal settling velocities predicted by stokes law5 but there has been no experimental study of crystal settling in such vigorous convection here we present physical considerations and laboratory experiments which show that the phenomenon of particle settling in these conditions can be accounted for by a simple theory application of this theory to crystal settling in magma chambers suggests that crystal settling may be an efficient differentiation mechanism at least in basaltic magma chambers despite large convective velocities

reconstruction of eruption column dynamics on the basis of grain size of tephra fall deposits 1 methods two inversion methods are developed to reconstruct eruption column dynamics from granulometric data of plinian deposits they are based on the steady tephra dispersal model from umbrella clouds which spread as gravity currents the methods provide 1 expansion rate of an umbrella cloud 2 grain size distribution at the top of the eruption column and 3 total amount of ejecta including very fine particles which are extensively dispersed in the atmosphere the first quantity is correlated to the magma discharge rate the second quantity provides information about sorting processes during column rise and hence about deceleration in the gas thrust region of the eruption column and the timing of column collapse the third quantity together with the estimated magma discharge rate provides the effective duration of the eruption the two methods are based on the same dispersal model but use different averaging combining the two methods can provide additional information about eruption dynamics such as minor flow structures of the umbrella cloud and fluctuations of eruption rate the methods are applicable to large scale eruptions where the radial expansion velocity of the umbrella cloud exceeds wind velocity the applicability of the methods is tested from the viewpoint of comparison with real time observations in the companion paper paper 2

the dynamics and thermodynamics of volcanic clouds theory and observations from the april 15 and april 21 1990 eruptions of redoubt volcano alaska on april 15 1990 and april 21 1990 two relatively small explosive eruptions occurred at redoubt volcano alaska lasting about 4 and 8 minutes respectively on both occasions the erupted material travelled as a pyroclastic flow down an ice canyon on the north flank of the volcano using slow scan television recordings of the eruption and the seismic record in both the near and far field we deduce that after a few minutes the upper parts of these pyroclastic flows became buoyant and a large and hot ash cloud ascended off the flow these thermals rose to a height of about 12 km at which point they began to spread laterally as umbrella clouds using a simple thermodynamic model we estimate that the clouds had a temperature in the approximate range 600 700 k as they rose buoyantly from the flow after entraining and heating air and melting and vaporizing ice we also estimate that in each eruption approximately 109 kg of fine ash was injected into the atmosphere during the april 15 eruption a slow scan television camera recorded the ascent of the cloud these observations are described analysed and compared with the predictions of a new model for the dynamics governing the ascent of such clouds in accord with the observations our model predicts that the cloud initially ascended rather sluggishly since it is only just buoyant on rising from the pyroclastic flow as it ascends it entrains and heats up more air and hence generates more buoyancy therefore it accelerates upwards only much higher in the cloud does the velocity decrease again as the thermal energy of the cloud becomes exhausted the model also predicts that the height of rise of such coignimbrite thermals is a function of the initial mass and temperature of the cloud but is almost independent of the initial velocity during the april 21 eruption a sequence of photographs recorded the lateral spreading of the umbrella cloud during an interval of about 10 minutes after the eruption these photographs are analysed and successfully compared with a simple model for the spreading of the umbrella cloud as a gravity current in a stratified environment using an avhrr satellite image of the air fall deposit from the april 15 eruption combined with a simple model we suggest that the primary mechanism of ash dispersal was transport by the ambient wind

on the formation of eruption columns following explosive mixing of magma and surface water when magma vents into the sea or a crater lake the ensuing magma water interaction can affect the style of eruption dramatically if the mass of surface water incorporated into the erupting material is small 108 kg s the height progressively decreases with surface water content this occurs when the magma and surface water begin to constitute a significant fraction of the mass at the top of the column so that an increasing fraction of the initial magmatic thermal energy is converted to the surface water rather than the entrained air the transitions in eruption style which result from changes in the mass of surface water mixing with the magma may account for observations of both buoyant plumes and wet surge during the eruptions of taal in 1965 and miyake jima in 1983 and for the changes in the eruptive activity at surtsey in 1963 1964 as the access of seawater to the vent became more restricted we also present calculations which suggest that the accretionary lapilli which are often found in wet flow deposits may result from condensation of vapor in both the cold wet collapsing fountains and in the flows themselves

a gravity current model for the may 18 1980 mount st helens plume observations of the stratospheric plume from the may 18 1980 mount st helens eruption suggest that it spread in the crosswind direction as an intrusive gravity current as it was transported downwind grain size analyses of the plinian tephra are consistent with this model suggesting that to distances of many hundreds of kilometers turbulent atmospheric diffusion played a secondary role in plume spreading and tephra dispersal

grain size variation of tephra derived from volcanic umbrella clouds the relationships among the thickness and grain size of tephra fall deposits and the volumetric flow rate of their source umbrella clouds are analytically obtained the logarithm of the ratio of the probability distribution function based on grain size inr f in fall deposits at two localities from the vent r 1 and r 2 respectively has a linear relationship with the particle settling velocity v as in 1n r f frac pi r 2 2 r 1 2 nu q 1n a where q is the volumetric flow rate of the umbrella cloud and a is a constant for a given pair of localities the volumetric flow rate of the umbrella cloud can be estimated from granulometric data using this formula generally the thickness distance relationship of tephra fall deposits depends on the initial grain size distribution and the volumetric flow rate of the umbrella cloud the empirical relationship of the exponential thinning behaviour can be extrapolated towards infinite distance only for a specific initial grain size which is similar to a log normal distribution with 2 5 otherwise it holds only in a limited range of distances in applying these results to the 1991 eruption of mt pinatubo it is shown that the volumetric flow rate of the umbrella cloud during the climactic phase of 15 june was approximately 5x1010 m3 s which is fairly consistent with the expansion rate of the umbrella cloud observed in the satellite images

the initial giant umbrella cloud of the may 18th 1980 explosive eruption of mount st helens abstract the initial eruption column of may 18th 1980 reached nearly 30 km altitude and released 10 17 joules of thermal energy into the atmosphere in only a few minutes ascent of the cloud resulted in forced intrusion of a giant umbrella shaped cloud between altitudes of 10 and 20 km at radial horizontal velocities initially in excess of 50 m s the mushroom cloud expanded 15 km upwind forming a stagnation point where the radial expansion velocity and wind velocity were equal the cloud was initiated when the pyroclastic blast flow became buoyant the flow reduced its density as it moved away from the volcano by decompression by sedimentation and by mixing with and heating the surrounding air observations indicate that much of the flow covering an area of 600 km 2 became buoyant within 1 5 minutes and abruptly ascended to form the giant cloud calculations are presented for the amount of air that must have been entrained into the flow to make it buoyant assuming an initial temperature of 450 c and a magmatic origin for the explosion these calculations indicate that the flow became buoyant when its temperature was approximately 150 c and the flow consisted of a mixture of 3 25 10 11 kg of pyroclasts and 5 0 10 11 kg of air if sedimentation is considered these figures reduce to 1 1 10 11 kg of pyroclasts and 1 0 10 11 kg of air

sedimentation from turbulent jets and plumes theoretical models are developed for the sedimentation from the margins of a particle laden axisymmetric turbulent buoyant plume in a still environment and for an axisymmetric turbulent momentum jet the models assume that the mass of each individual size fraction of sediment carried in a parcel of fluid decreases exponentially with time for relatively coarse particles the fallout models predict that the sediment deposition beyond a distance r on the ground expressed in log units should decay linearly with distance away from the vent for the momentum jet and should decrease with r1 3 for the buoyant plume the exponential decay constant j is proportional to the terminal fall velocity vt of the particles in both cases and inversely proportional to the square root of the initial momentum flux m0 for the jet fallout jj vtmo 1 2 and to the third power of the initial buoyancy flux fo for the plume fallout jp vtfo 1 3 smaller particles are affected by reentrainment caused by the turbulent eddies sweeping ambient fluid back into the plume or jet and thus reincorporating some particles that were released from the flow at greater heights this is taken into account by introducing a reentrainment coefficient into the theoretical models with the assumption that the coefficient has a constant value for a plume of given strength in new experiments fallout occurs from the margins of particle laden fresh water buoyant jets and plumes in a tank of salty water and sedimentation is measured on the tank floor two experiments were weakly affected by reentrainment and show excellent agreement with the simple theory for smaller particles and increasingly buoyant plumes and strong jets particle reentrainment is important the experimental data are fitted by the new reentrainment theory confirming that values of the reentrainment coefficient are approximately constant for a given flow a settling number is defined as the ratio of the characteristic velocity of the jet or plume to the particle settling velocity for 1 reentrainment seems to reach an equilibrium state for which the reentrainment coefficient is a constant of value 0 1 for jets and 0 4 for plumes irrespective of flow strength or particle size the plume experiments indicate that the value of the reentrainment coefficient is strongly dependent on plume strength and particle size for slightly less than 1 the general principles of sedimentation from turbulent plumes and jets are applied to the fallout of pumice from volcanic eruption columns and of metalliferous particles from black smokers on the ocean floor for volcanic eruptions the results provide an explanation for the near vent overthickening of tephra fall deposits and imply that lithic and pumice fragments from small lapilli up to at least 1 m diameter blocks are efficiently reentrained into eruption columns the size of particles reentrained in hydrothermal plumes is predicted to vary from less than 100 m in weakly buoyant plumes up to over 1000 m in megaplumes

where glaciers meet water subaqueous melt and its relevance to glaciers in various settings glacier change is ubiquitous but the fastest and largest magnitude changes occur in glaciers that terminate in water this includes the most rapidly retreating glaciers and also several advancing ones often in similar regional climate settings furthermore water terminating glaciers show a large range in morphology particularly when ice flow into ocean water is compared to that into freshwater lakes all water terminating glaciers share the ability to lose significant volume of ice at the front either through mechanical calving or direct melt from the water in contact here we present a review of the subaqueous melt process we discuss the relevant physics and show how different physical settings can lead to different glacial responses we find that subaqueous melt can be an important trigger for glacier change it can explain many of the morphological differences such as the existence or absence of floating tongues subaqueous melting is influenced by glacial runoff which is largely a function of atmospheric conditions this shows a tight connection between atmosphere oceans and lakes and glaciers subaqueous melt rates even if shown to be large should always be discussed in the context of ice supply to the glacier front to assess its overall relevance we find that melt is often relevant to explain seasonal evolution can be instrumental in shifting a glacier into a different dynamical regime and often forms a large part of a glacier s mass loss on the other hand in some cases melt is a small component of mass loss and does not significantly affect glacier response

experiments on gas ash separation processes in volcanic umbrella plumes abstract we present a series of analogue laboratory experiments which simulate the separation of ash and gas and the formation of secondary intrusions from finite volcanic umbrella plumes we examined the lateral spreading of mixtures of freshwater and particles released into a laboratory tank containing a uniformly stratified aqueous solution for times smaller than the sedimentation time of particles through the intrusion the current remains coherent and intrudes laterally as some of the particles settle into the underlying ambient fluid a layer of particle depleted fluid develops below the upper surface of the current and the density of the residual fluid is reduced over longer times the intrusion ceases to be coherent with small fingers of relatively buoyant particle depleted fluid rising from the upper part of the intrusion into the overlying fluid meanwhile the lateral motion of the injected solution induces a return flow in the ambient fluid which sweeps some of the particles sedimenting from the lower surface of the intrusion inwards as a result relatively dense particle laden fluid collects below the intrusion and then sinks into the underlying fluid eventually this fluid reaches a new neutral buoyancy height where it intrudes to form a second laterally spreading current below the original intrusion the process then repeats to form further weaker intrusions below these results of the separation of the ash and volcanic gas in an umbrella plume are consistent with field observations at sakurajima volcano where positively charged plumes thought to consist of volcanic gas have been observed above negatively charged plumes of ash this work also suggests that volcanic aerosols may form up to a kilometer above the original injection height of the ash in a strong wind shear this could result in very different trajectories of the ash and gas and so be important for evaluating the impact of ash plumes on both aviation safety and volcanic aerosol formation the separation of the ash from the umbrella plume after a time of order 10 3 10 4 s corroborates recent models of the may 18 1980 eruption at mount st helens that after a few hours the motion of the ash was simply controlled by wind dispersal and gravitational settling the complex motion of the sedimenting ash may also explain some of the observations of multiple intrusions in short lived umbrella plumes such as observed at redoubt alaska in april 1990

satellite observations and interpretation of the 1991 mount pinatubo eruption plumes we demonstrate the use of hourly geostationary meteorological satellite gms and noaa polar orbiting advanced very high resolution radiometer avhrr satellite images of the june 1991 mount pinatubo volcanic eruption plumes in providing details of the timing changing eruptive style and umbrella plume movement and dynamics a chronology of explosive events which culminated in a 9 hour long climactic phase on june 15 has been determined from satellite data and favorably compared to ground based and other ancillary information maximum eruption column altitudes of 40 km and column top undercooling in excess of 55 c below the ambient atmosphere occurred during the climactic phase phases dominated by plinian versus coignimbrite eruptive plumes can be distinguished on the images analysis of the spreading umbrella plume during the climactic phase suggests that over the first 4 5 hours the plume spread laterally as a gravitational intrusion before becoming advected in the ambient winds we compare the rate of plume growth to a model of a radially symmetric continuously fed intrusion to describe the motion the rate of plume growth shows good agreement with this simple model for the first 4 5 hours from column top heights we determine eruption rates and obtain an independent estimate of the total volume of magma erupted from june 12 16 of 5 5 km3 dense rock equivalent dre in good agreement with an independent estimate of the total eruptive volume made from deposits on land and submarine ash fall of up to 5 3 km3 dre we also show that secondary explosions in the pinatubo ignimbrite deposits produced ash plumes reaching altitudes as high as 19 km in september 1991 this study indicates that realistic interpretation and monitoring of major eruption plumes can be accomplished by analysis of high temporal resolution satellite data

influence of particle aggregation on deposition of distal tephra from the may 18 1980 eruption of mount st helens volcano the may 18 1980 eruption of mount st helens msh produced an extensive ashfall deposit in washington idaho and montana with a minumum volume of 0 55 km3 tephra an unusual feature of the deposit is the occurrence of a second thickness maximum 325 km ene of msh near ritzville washington grain size and component abundance analysis of samples along the main dispersal axis indicates that ash in this region is very fine grained mean size 22 m poorly sorted polymodal and rich in glass shards and pumice fragments a computer simulation of ash fallout from an atmospherically dispersed eruption plume was developed to evaluate various hypotheses for the origin of the distal ash characteristics particularly the thickness versus distance relationship the model was constrained by observations of the eruption column height elevation of major ash transport lateral spreading of the eruption plume and atmospheric wind structure in the vicinity of msh results of different simulations indicate that the second thickness maximum cannot be attributed to either decreased wind velocities over central washington or injection of fine ash above the horizontal wind velocity maximum near the tropopause for the model to fit the observed characteristics of the deposit significant particle aggregation of ash finer than 63 m must be invoked the best fit occurs when ash less than 63 m is aggregated into particles several hundred microns in diameter with a settling velocity of 0 35 m s support for this process comes from the observation and collection of fragile ash clusters of similar size which fell at pullman washington during the may 18 eruption sorem 1982 the premature fallout of fine ash as particle aggregates is a fundamental process in the origin of the grain size characteristics variations in component abundances and thickness versus distance relationship of the may 18 msh ash fall deposit

reconstruction of eruption column dynamics on the basis of grain size of tephra fall deposits 2 application to the pinatubo 1991 eruption the granulometric methods to reconstruct eruption column dynamics developed in paper 1 are applied to the tephra fall deposits of the climactic plinian phase of the 1991 eruption at pinatubo the tephra fall deposits are composed of two units layer c1 which corresponds to the first half of the climactic phase and layer c2 the second half the granulometric estimates of the expansion rate of the umbrella cloud for layers c1 and c2 are 7 1010 and 3 1010 m3 s respectively which agree with the observations of satellite images these estimates indicate that the magma discharge rate decreased from 9 108 to 3 108 kg s during the eruption the grain size distribution at the top of the eruption column is characterized by depletion of coarse clasts suggesting a distinct deceleration in the gas thrust region down to several tens of meters per second particularly during the second half of the climactic phase the total amount of layers c1 and c2 is estimated to be 3 1012 kg and the very fine particles which did not deposit in the accessible on land area may occupy up to 60 of the total ejecta the effective duration of the eruption estimated by the present methods a few hours or less is substantially shorter than a previous estimate from the real time observation based on infrasonic data 10 hours this discrepancy may be attributed to the overestimation of the magma discharge rate due to the entrainment of the ambient air at the cloud top and or to the underestimation of the total amount of the ejecta due to the effect of the contemporaneous plinian activity and generation of pyroclastic flows it is also suggested that the intensity of eruption was fluctuating with time so that the instantaneous observations such as cloud height in satellite images do not always show a quantitative agreement with the time averaged features predicted by the present methods

moist convection and the injection of volcanic ash into the atmosphere if unsaturated water vapor is carried upward by a volcanic eruption column it may eventually become saturated owing to the decrease in temperature of the column as it expands through decompression and transfers heat to entrained air heat released as a result of the subsequent condensation of water vapor causes the air within the column to expand we show that this increases the buoyancy and therefore the total height of rise of the column the increase in height is significant in relatively small sub plinian and strombolian eruptions in which mass eruption rates lie in the range 103 to 106 kg s in such eruptions the latent heat released as the entrained water vapor condenses may provide the main source of heat which drives the ash and clasts upward the height of rise then becomes relatively insensitive to the mass flux erupted at the vent and depends primarily upon the vapor loading of the atmosphere in a moist atmosphere ash may rise several kilomtres higher than in an eruption of comparable strength in a dry environment moist convection leads to much wider ash dispersal particularly from very small eruptions subsequently rain flushing of ash from umbrella clouds may result from the water which forms through the condensation of entrained vapor the ash provides natural condensation nuclei for some of this entrained vapor whose mass may be much greater than that of the ash in small columns 107 kg s the latent heat released by condensation of vapor is relatively small in comparison with the thermal energy provided by the hot clasts and therefore moisture has no significant effect upon the eruption column dynamics furthermore the mass of water vapor originating from the erupted volatiles is usually comparable to or greater than that entrained from the ambient air our model also shows that if the erupting mixture becomes buoyant then the eruption columns associated with phreatomagmatic eruptions ascend nearly as high as plinian columns with the same mass eruption rate this is because the water which is vaporized by the hot ash at the source condenses higher in the column and thereby restores its latent heat to the ascending ash

the effect of total grain size distribution on the dynamics of turbulent volcanic plumes abstract the impact of explosive volcanic plumes on climate and on air traffic strongly depends on the concentration and grain size distribution gsd of pyroclastic fragments injected into the atmosphere accurate and robust modelling of the evolution of gsd during pyroclast transport from the vent to the ash cloud is therefore crucial for the assessment of major volcanic hazards analysis of field deposits from various recent plinian eruptions shows that their total gsd is well described by a power law as expected from the physics of magma fragmentation with an exponent d ranging from 3 0 to 3 9 by incorporating these measured gsd into the initial conditions of a steady state 1d model of explosive eruption columns we show that they have a first order impact on the dynamical behaviour of explosive eruption columns starting from an initial value of d the model tracks the evolution of gsd in the column and calculates the dynamical consequences of particle sedimentation the maximum height reached by the column one of the first order results relevant to aircraft safety changes by 30 for mass fluxes of 10 7 kg s 1 or larger and by 45 85 for mass fluxes between 105 and 10 7 kg s 1 depending on exponent d we compare our predictions to a specially assembled set of geologic field data and remote sensing observations from 10 plinian eruptions for which maximum column height and mass flux are known independently the incorporation of realistic power law gsd in the model greatly improves the predictions which opens new perspectives for estimation of ash load and gsd in volcanic clouds from near real time measurements available from satellite payloads our results also contribute to the improvement of volcanic source term characterization that is required input for meteorological dispersion models

sedimentation of tephra by volcanic plumes i theory and its comparison with a study of the fogo a plinian deposit sao miguel azores sedimentation of ejecta from volcanic plumes has been studied as a function of distance from the source in the fogo a plinian deposit sao miguel azores the fogo a trachytic pumice deposit is reversely graded and can be divided into two parts on the basis of pumice colour abundance of syenite accessory lithic clasts and distribution the lower syenite poor part was dispersed to the south and was clearly influenced by wind the upper syenite rich part is coarsegrained and has a nearly symmetrical distribution around the vent elongation of isopachs to the east indicate a weak wind influence the grain size variations of lithic and crystal components in the upper coarse part were studied total accumulation and accumulation per unit area expressed in kg m2 show good fits to a gaussian function at distances greater than 7 km for grain diameters less than 2 cm these results agree with a theoretical model for a radially spreading turbulent current moving over a quiescent fluid the gaussian coefficient is shown to be a function of grain size and the flow rate of material into the umbrella region of the eruption column the coefficient is therefore also a function of column height the column height deduced from these data is 21 km which is in broad agrrement with the column height of 27 km deduced from maximum clast dispersal using the method of carey and sparks 1986 the accumulation of clasts larger than 2 cm agrees with a theory for the fallout of clasts from the margins of the ascending eruption column which treats the plume as a succession of large eddies that decrease their mass of particles as an exponential function of time calculations are also presented for the influence of the radial inflow of surrounding air into the column on the deposition of clasts these calculations constrain the wind speed during the later part of the fogo a eruption to be at most a few metres per second the study has allowed four different dynamic categories of clast behaviour to be recognised in eruption columns

sedimentation from gravity currents generated by turbulent plumes sedimentation from radially spreading gravity currents generated at the top of ascending sediment laden plumes is described by a model which assumes that sediment is dispersed homogeneously by turbulence in the gravity current resulting in an exponential decrease in the concentration of sediment with time as particles settle out of the lower boundary of the current for radial spreading this model predicts a gaussian distribution of sediment accumulation away from the source with an exponential constant b which depends on flow rate q and particle settling velocity v b nv q in the experiments described sedimentation occurs from gravity currents generated by ascent of buoyant particle laden plumes of fresh water in a tank of salty water the sediment accumulation shows close agreement with the theoretical model and the gaussian decay constant b can be determined from a maximum in the accumulated mass of sediment per unit distance and from the slope of the line in s s0 br2 where r is the radial distance s is the sediment mass flux per unit area and s0 is the value of s at r 0 data from the dispersal of volcanic ejecta from a large c 24 km high plinian eruption column in the azores also show good agreement with the theory confirming that it is general and independent of scale and the nature of the fluid the experimental data also show a change in sedimentation behaviour at distances from the source corresponding to the corner of the plume where it diverts into a lateral gravity current and there is an abrupt decrease in vertical velocity sedimentation of coarse grain sizes between the source and the corner occurs from the inclined plume margins and does not behave as predicted by the theoretical model

wind driven dispersal of volcanic ash plumes and its control on the thermal structure of the plume top the dispersal of an ash plume as it propagates downwind with the ash settling under gravity is presented it is shown that wind shear the initial plume height and the plume grain size distribution have an important role in the dispersal of the ash in particular in determining the evolution of the upper surface and the leading edge of the ash cloud once the ash has thermally equilibrated with the atmosphere the temperature of the upper surface of the ash plume is directly related to its altitude as a result we can use the model to interpret satellite images of the temperature of the upper surface of ash plumes these calculations are compared with new analyses of satellite data from the 18 may 1980 eruptions of mount st helens in which both thermal infra red and visible goes satellite data were examined in accord with the data the model is able to predict the rate at which the mount st helens ash plume propagated downwind through a combination of the wind shear and gravitational settling of different size particles the model is also able to explain the observed thermal structure of the upper surface of the ash plume in which the temperature initially decreases but then increases with downwind distance as the ash falls through the tropopause