USGS/Cascades Volcano Observatory, Vancouver, Washington
REPORT:
Hazards of eruptions through lakes and shallow seawater
--
Mastin, L.G., and Witter, J.B., 2000,
Hazards of eruptions through lakes and shallow seawater,
Journal of Volcanology and Geothermal Research, v.97, pp.195-214.
Abstract
Eruptions
through crater lakes or shallow seawater, referred to here as subaqueous
eruptions, present hazards from hydromagmatic explosions, base surges,
lahars, and tsunamis, which may not exist at volcanoes on dry land. We have
systematically compiled information from eruptions through surface water in
order to understand the circumstances under which these hazards occur and
what disastrous effects they have caused in the past. Subaqueous eruptions
represent only 8% of all recorded eruptions but have produced about 20% of
all fatalities associated with volcanic activity in historical time.
Excluding eruptions that have resulted in about a hundred deaths or less,
lahars have killed people in the largest number of historical subaqueous
eruptions (8), followed by pyroclastic flows (excluding base surges; 5)
tsunamis (4), and base surges (2). Subaqueous eruptions have produced
lahars primarily on high (>1,000 m), steep-sided volcanoes containing
small (<1 km diameter) crater lakes. Tsunamis and other water waves
have caused death or destroyed man-made structures only at submarine
volcanoes and at Lake Taal in the Philippines. In spite of evidence that
magma-water mixing makes eruptions more explosive, such explosions and
their associated base surges have caused fewer deaths, and been implicated
in fewer eruptions involving large numbers of fatalities, than lahars and
tsunamis. The latter hazards are more deadly because they travel much
farther from a volcano and inundate coastal areas and stream valleys which
tend to be densely settled.
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05/28/04, Lyn Topinka