HR: 0800h
AN: V31A-0290    [Abstracts]
TI: Plumes and Wind II: Potential Hazards to Air Traffic From Inyo Craters
AU: * Kobs, S E
EM: sekobs@buffalo.edu
AF: University at Buffalo, 876 NSC, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States
AU: Bursik, M I
EM: mib@buffalo.edu
AF: University at Buffalo, 876 NSC, Buffalo, NY 14260, United States
AB: The Inyo Craters, CA, USA, last erupted explosively approximately 600 yBP when three vents in the chain produced four distinct subplinian eruptions. South Deadman 1, the first of these eruptions, produced a pulsating eruption column that may have reached a maximum height of 9 km in a 30 m/s S ambient wind, though anomalous elongation of the airfall deposit prevents it from being properly modeled using standard inversion models. During the second, and steadier, eruption from South Deadman the column rose to 12 km in a 20 m/s N ambient wind. The Obsidian Flow eruption deposits are distributed to the north, with an initial vent-clearing blast followed by a sustained eruption column of 14 km in a 10 m/s S wind. The final, and largest, eruption came from the Glass Creek vent. The Glass Creek eruption column had a maximum height of 15 km in a 25 m/s ambient wind. Transcontinental flights to San Francisco and Oakland Airports cross directly over the Inyo vent sites. A recurrence of the Inyo eruption sequence today could significantly disrupt California air traffic by injecting tephra into the jet stream. ATHAM is used to simulate the Inyo eruptions and the intersection of their ash clouds with potential flight paths. The use of a Navier-Stokes based eruption simulator allows for more detailed characterization of cloud trajectory and mass loading than has been previously possible through statistical models.
DE: 8428 Explosive volcanism
SC: Volcanology, Geochemistry, Petrology [V]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting