Prof M J Branney, Dr D J Smith
No more applications being accepted
Competition Funded PhD Project (European/UK Students Only)
About the Project
Flooded explosive caldera volcanoes present one of the largest geohazards on the planet, but the catastrophic eruption processes remain poorly understood. Fragmented silicic magma erupts vigorously through voluminous caldera lakewater, interacting with it. This may enhance the violence of the explosivity (‘fuel-coolant interaction’), while agglomeration and accretion of fine ash particles in water-saturated atmospheric conditions leads to premature fallout and deposition. This creates some unusual and intriguing fine-grained deposits with abundant accretionary lapilli2, and flash-quenched magma bombs5. Such deposits are preserved on the 600 m-high caldera walls, and pyroclastic shield around Taal caldera south of Manila in the Philippines1.
Taal was highlighted as a ‘Decade Volcano’1 in the 1990’s because of frequent historic explosive eruptions, the vast size (25 km across) of the caldera, and the potential threat to millions who live around it. However, the history of the major, caldera-forming eruptions is only sketchily resolved. Much evidence lies in the geological record: an extensive shield of fine-grained, accretionary lapilli -bearing ignimbrites, spectacular coarse-grained proximal deposits of enigmatic origin (breccias and agglomerates), and abundant phreatomagmatic cross-bedded tephras.
This project aims to re-assess the pyroclastic record using modern physical volcanology techniques to help quantify the styles, frequencies, and extent of the most-hazardous, large-scale eruptions at Taal.
Funding Notes
This studentship is one of a number of fully funded studentships available to the best UK and EU candidates available as part of the NERC DTP CENTA consortium.
For more details of the CENTA consortium please see the CENTA website: www.centa.org.uk.
Applicants must meet requirements for both academic qualifications and residential eligibility: http://www.nerc.ac.uk/skills/postgrad/
Please direct informal enquiries to the project supervisor. If you wish to apply formally, please do so via: http://www2.le.ac.uk/study/research/funding/centa/how-to-apply-for-a-centa-project
References
Bartel BA (2003) Dynamics of active magmatic and hydrothermal systems at Taal Volcano, Philippines, from continuous GPS measurements, J Geophy Research 108: B10.
5Branney MJ, Kokelaar BP (2002) Pyroclastic density currents and the sedimentation of ignimbrites. J Geol Soc Lond 87: 1-150.
2Brown RJ, Branney MJ (2010) Origin of accretionary lapilli within ground-hugging pyroclastic density currents: evidence from pyroclastic couplets on Tenerife. Bull Geol Soc Amer 210:305-20.
1Torres RC, Self S, Punongbayan RS (1995) Attention focusses on Taal: Decade Volcano of the Philippines. EOS Trans Amer Geophys Union 76: 241, 246-247.
3Knott TR, Reichow MK, Branney MJ et al. (2016). Mid-Miocene record of large-scale Snake River-type rhyolitic explosive volcanism and associated subsidence on the Yellowstone hotspot track: The Cassia Formation, Idaho: Bull Geol Soc America Feb 10, 2016.