A new approach to probabilistic lava flow hazard assessments, applied to the Idaho National Laboratory, eastern Snake River Plain, Idaho, USA

Abstract

We present a new probabilistic lava flow hazard assessment for the U.S. Department of Energy's Idaho National Laboratory (INL) nuclear facility that (1) explores the way eruptions are defined and modeled, (2) stochastically samples lava flow parameters from observed values for use in MOLASSES, a lava flow simulator, (3) calculates the likelihood of a new vent opening within the boundaries of INL, (4) determines probabilities of lava flow inundation for INL through Monte Carlo simulation, and (5) couples inundation probabilities with recurrence rates to determine the annual likelihood of lava flow inundation for INL. Results show a 30% probability of partial inundation of the INL given an effusive eruption on the eastern Snake River Plain, with an annual inundation probability of 8.4 × 10 −5 to 1.8 × 10 −4. An annual probability of 6.2 × 10 −5 to 1.2 × 10 −4 is estimated for the opening of a new eruptive center within INL boundaries.

How to use kernel density estimation as a diagnostic and forecasting tool for distributed volcanic vents

“…Certainly, a major expense in hazard assessment is data gathering to support the interpretation of mapped volcanic features as events. Hazard assessments sometimes consider alternative event data sets and account for the effect of these varying data sets on spatial density estimates (Gallant et al, 2018). Spatial density estimates made by KDE use the mapped locations of previously formed volcanic vents (e.g., the white circles in Figure 1).…”

“…Single igneous dikes ascending through the crust might form segments and rotate within the shallow crust, with each segment feeding a separate vent and each building a volcanic cone (Reches & Fink, 1988;Kiyosugi et al, 2012). If the goal of analysis is to forecast the distribution of future magmatic events, each of which might produce more than one monogenetic volcano, geological data must be gathered and volcanoes formed by the same magmatic event must be somehow grouped as single events (Runge et al, 2014;Bevilacqua et al, 2017;Gallant et al, 2018). Similarly, the spatial distribution of polygenetic volcanoes reflects processes of magma generation and rise through the crust.…”

Dynamic Probabilistic Hazard Mapping in the Long Valley Volcanic Region CA: Integrating Vent Opening Maps and Statistical Surrogates of Physical Models of Pyroclastic Density Currents

“…In this sense, we anticipate that the approach presented here and variations thereof will prove useful for a wide range of volcanic hazards-lahars, tephra fallout, and pyroclastic surges. In particular, we imagine that such an approach could be useful to overcome computational challenges described in Biass, Bonadonna, Di Traglia, et al (2016), Gallant et al (2018), and Mead and Magill (2017).…”

Counterfactual Analysis of Runaway Volcanic Explosions

“…MOLASSES uses a cellular automata framework to investigate the topographic dependence of runout of pyroclastic density currents from an explosive eruption. The cellular automata (CA) concept is one modeling framework that can be adopted for investigation of surface flows, such as lava flows and rock avalanches (Connor et al, 2012;Kubanek et al, 2015;Gallant et al, 2018). However, it has not previously been applied, as far as is known, to highly mobile pyroclastic density currents.…”