New paper led by PhD student Amy Myers! Dome vs. spine?

Amy Myers, who is in her final year of PhD, has published her first paper! This paper compiles data from the literature regarding the height, width, aspect ratio (height/width), and composition of viscous extrusions in nature. We compile data for 323 viscous extrusions and find that (1) typically features with aspect ratios < 0.6 are classified by authors as domes, while features with aspect ratios > 0.8 are classified by authors as spines; (2) there lacks very small (W < 20 m) viscous extrusions in nature, which could be either undersampling or reflect minimum conduit size for dome-forming flow; (3) statistical analysis finds no effect of composition for intermediate silica contents; and (4) height and width form a linear trend on a log-log plot. For more information, view the open access paper here.

Fig. 4 from Myers et al. (2024). Log-log plot of height and width of measured viscous extrusions. Characterisation as either a lava dome or lava spineis taken from the source publication. Extrusions classified by previous researchers as lava domes dominate at aspect ratios< 0.6, and those classified as lava spines at aspect ratios > 0.6. Dashed lines represent lines of equal aspect ratio. Photographsshow typical geometries for lava domes (Novarupta, USA; USGS) and lava spines (Santiaguito, Guatemala; Bill Rose)