Physics
Scientific paper
Dec 2010
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2010agufm.p11b1341d&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Fall Meeting 2010, abstract #P11B-1341
Physics
[6063] Planetary Sciences: Comets And Small Bodies / Volcanism, [6219] Planetary Sciences: Solar System Objects / Io, [8450] Volcanology / Planetary Volcanism, [8485] Volcanology / Remote Sensing Of Volcanoes
Scientific paper
Active lava lakes are open volcanic systems, where lava circulates between a magma chamber and the surface. Rare on Earth, lava lakes may be common on Io, the highly volcanic jovian moon (e.g., [1]). Io’s low atmospheric pressure means that activity within Io’s lava lakes may be explosive, exposing lava at near-liquid temperatures (currently poorly constrained for Io). Lava lakes are therefore important targets for future missions to Io [2, 3]. With this in mind, hand-held infrared imagers were used to collect thermal emission data from the phonolite Erebus (Antarctica) lava lake [4] and the basalt lava lake at Erta’Ale (Ethiopia). Temperature-area distributions and the integrated thermal emission spectra for each lava lake were determined from the data. These calculated spectra have been used to test models developed for analysis of remote sensing data of lava lakes and lava flows on both Earth and Io, where no ground-truth exists. The silicate cooling model [5] assumes, for the lava lake model variant, that the existing surface crust has been created at a fixed rate. Model output consists of a synthesized thermal emission spectrum, estimate of surface age range, and a rate of surface crust area formation. The cooling model provides accurate reproductions of actual thermal spectra and the total emitting area to within a few percent of actual emitting area. Model resurfacing rates broadly agree with observed behaviour at both lakes. Despite different composition lavas, the short-wavelength infrared thermal emission spectra from the two terrestrial lava lakes studied are very similar in shape, and, importantly, bear a striking similarity to spectra of Pele, an Io volcano that has been proposed to be a persistent, active lava lake [6] and which is the source of a 300-km high dust and gas plume. Our study of the cooling of the hottest lava exposed at Erta’Ale yields constraints on the ability of multispectral imagers to determine eruption temperature. We find that data at wavelengths shorter than 1 µm hold the key to constraining eruption temperature, which has to be taken into consideration for future missions to Io [e.g., 3]. This work was conducted at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, California Institute of Technology, under contract with NASA, and is supported by the NASA PG&G Program. AGD thanks the BBC for transport to the Erta’Ale lava lake. Copyright 2010 California Institute of Technology. References: [1] Davies, (2007) Volcanism on Io, Cambridge. [2] Keszthelyi et al. (2009) LPSC abstract 1943. [3] McEwen et al. (2010) LPSC abstract 1433. [4] Davies et al., (2008) JVGR, 177, 705-724. [5] Davies (1996) Icarus, 124, 45-61. [6] Davies et al. (2001) JGR, 108, 33,079-33,104.
Davies Andrew G.
Keszthelyi Laszlo P.
McEwen Alfred S.
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