Scientists have made a new discovery about what happens deep inside volcanoes when they are not erupting, helping experts better understand these powerful natural systems and how they can be safely studied, reported Newsweek.
Scientists have recently discovered how magma behaves beneath active volcanoes, opening up new possibilities for monitoring and targeted drilling for green energy. Although volcanoes are renowned for their eruptions-which occur daily across the globe-they remain dormant for most of the time, raising the question of what happens to the magma while it is inactive.
A team led by Janine Birnbaum, a volcanologist at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitat Munich, has for the first time directly reconstructed the actual conditions within a magma chamber and determined how it responds during drilling operations. Their findings have been published in the journal Nature and could revolutionise the way volcanoes are monitored.
During quiescent periods, magma slowly rises from the depths of the Earth and can remain trapped within the crust for years, decades, or even millennia. During this time, it cools, crystallises, assimilates surrounding rocks, and either loses or gains dissolved gases-such as water and carbon dioxide-which ultimately trigger eruptions.
A minor alteration-whether it be a change in heat, the influx of fresh magma from the deep interior, or the formation of bubbles-can trigger an eruption, much like an overheated can of soda expands and bursts. Understanding magma behaviour during dormant phases is crucial, yet it remains a challenging endeavour.
This situation changed in 2009 during a drilling campaign in the Krafla volcanic zone of northeastern Iceland. As part of the Iceland Deep Drilling Project, researchers unexpectedly encountered magma at a depth of approximately two kilometres. During the drilling process, cold fluids were introduced into the magma, causing it to solidify into small, glass-like fragments.
When scientists examined these fragments, they observed that although the cooled magma was riddled with numerous tiny bubbles, it contained a lower concentration of dissolved gases than would be expected given the prevailing temperature and pressure conditions. To unravel this mystery, Birnbaum and her team developed a numerical model, which revealed that magma reacts during drilling and loses its gas content before solidifying completely into glass. Previous measurements indicated that it takes several minutes for magma to cool from approximately 900°C to 520°C, according to the researchers, during this interval, gas escapes from the molten magma and forms bubbles.
Consequently, the glass fragments collected during drilling do not accurately represent the original state of the magma; rather, they reflect a rapidly evolving system that has been altered by the drilling process.
Source link
[ad_3]
