In conversation with International Innovation, volcanologists Drs Amanda CLARKE DRS AMANDA & AUGUSTO NERI Clarke and Augusto Neri Explosive describe their successful international collaborative research programme on work exploding volcanoes Flavio Dobran and Dr Giovanni Macedonio, aimed collaborations, such as the special and long- at simulation of volcanic processes. This was lasting cooperations with Professor Barry Voight, then a very innovative approach that recognised Amanda and Dr Christina Widiwijayanti on the the need to complement field observations with modelling and simulation of magma ascent and quantitative representations based on the laws explosive events at Mount St Helens and Soufriere of physics and modern mathematics. Explosive Hills volcanoes. volcanism was a key subject for us due to the fact that in Italy we have very-high-risk explosive What do you consider to be your team’s major volcanoes such as Vesuvius and Campi Flegrei. I contributions up to now? was also fascinated by the challenging and always surprising beauty of these phenomena, and wished AN: I would say that perhaps the most important to contribute to mitigating their hazards. contribution of our INGV research team, which includes Amanda as Research Associate, has been Could you discuss your accomplishments and the demonstration of the genuine value that The INGV research group (from left to right): Augusto your hopes for the far-reaching impact of physical and mathematical models can provide Neri, Mattia de’Michieli Vitturi, Amanda Clarke, Sara your work? for a deeper understanding of volcanic processes. Barsotti and Tomaso Esposti Ongaro. Very often the complexity of these nonlinear and AC: Like Augusto, a key goal of my work has often non-observable processes prevents a simple Dr Clarke, could you begin with some remarks been to combine mathematical models with interpretation of the dynamics, and therefore on your background and what attracted you to relevant field observations and data in order to mathematical models are required to quantitatively explosive volcanism research? better understand the physics of, and controlling describe the relationships between the variables factors in, important eruptions of the past. The that control the system. Our research work has AC: Certainly! My undergraduate degrees at purpose has been to illuminate the key processes also had a significant impact in the assessment of the University of Notre Dame are in Aerospace and demonstrate the effectiveness of a particular volcanic hazards. With the 2D and 3D modelling and Mechanical Engineering, and Philosophy. model in simulating real volcanic eruptions. technology we developed at INGV, time-varying My interest in volcanic eruptions began while We have been fortunate in achieving some numerical simulations of plausible future explosive interning at the Boeing Company, when I became success, for instance in understanding the role events – at Vesuvius and Montserrat for instance – aware of an incident involving the loss of four of dynamic pressure in producing damage in a have proven extremely useful to represent the likely engines on a 747 airliner that had interacted pyroclastic current, and in partnership with INGV dynamics of eruption and identify areas at risk. with a volcanic ash cloud. Several years later in describing the physics in great detail inside an I began a PhD in Geosciences at Pennsylvania otherwise opaque eruption plume, and also the Do you play an active role in nurturing the State University working under Professor Barry physics of lava-dome eruptions. development of the next generation of Voight, with my main research focused on researchers in the field? solving problems in explosive volcanism using Who makes up your collaborative modern numerical fluid dynamics. As part of this research team? AC: Yes, I am very proud of my PhD students, research I also assisted the volcano observatory and several of them have become quite in Montserrat during the summer of 1997, and AN: In my activity I have tried as much as possible successful. Brittany Brand is now an assistant had the good fortune of witnessing a series of to attract bright young researchers that can professor at Boise State University, Kimberly spectacular hazardous explosions. Not long contribute to the development of our modelling Genareau is an assistant professor at the afterward this study triggered the possibility approach. I have been lucky to find special PhD University of Alabama and Kirsten Chojnicki is a of collaboration with Augusto at the Istituto students that are now leading the advancement postdoc at Scripps Institution of Oceanography. Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV). of this field at the international level. In particular One of my goals in mentoring PhD students Tomaso Esposti Ongaro, Mattia de’Michieli Vitturi is to ensure they will have made a unique Dr Neri, how did your interest and efforts in and Sara Barsotti. Tomaso is based in INGV, Mattia contribution to the field of volcanology and this area begin? shares his time between INGV and Arizona State have built a strong, effective research skillset. University (ASU) working with Amanda, and Sara This will help them to stand out in the research AN: My background is in chemical engineering, so I is currently Head of the volcanic hazard section community. Our ASU group has also been started out similarly to Amanda. After my Master’s at the Icelandic Meteorological Office, currently well supported by visitor research, including my interest was piqued by a new and ambitious dealing with the Bardarbunga eruption. A further Mattia, and others such as the Russian field project starting at INGV with the support of paramount contribution to the development volcanologists Drs Marina and Sasha Belousov, Professor Franco Barberi and the leads of Professor of our research team comes from international and UK scale-modeller Dr Jeremy Phillips. WWW.INTERNATIONALINNOVATION.COM 39 DRS AMANDA CLARKE & AUGUSTO NERI Challenges in volcanology The study of volcanoes is challenging for a number of reasons, but novel research based at Arizona State University, USA, and the Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Italy, is overcoming these difficulties using a unique approach that combines a variety of experimental and theoretical methods with broad collaboration and interdisciplinary influences VOLCANOLOGY IS AN immensely interesting EXAMPLE APPLICATIONS the propagation of the eruptive cloud, made field where the basic sciences of geology and up of high-temperature gases, ash, pumice geophysics encounter profound and readily Volcanic lateral blasts are among the most and rock fragments, over the mountainous understandable human impacts. The scale and spectacular and devastating of natural phenomena region surrounding the volcano, and correctly diversity of volcanic impacts is such that, even but until the recent work of PhD student Tomaso reproduce the flow-front velocity, run-out (the in recent years, disasters at Mount St Helens Esposti Ongaro, Neri, Clarke and colleagues, their maximum distance reached by the cloud) and in the US, Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia, the dynamics had not been properly understood. The impact. The team’s results demonstrated that, Soufrière Hills volcano in Montserrat and Iceland’s best documented and most controversial of blasts when detailed geological constraints and high- Eyjafjallajökull have confounded the ability of occurred in a destructive eruption in a forested performance supercomputers are available, those affected to predict or respond effectively wilderness area at Mount St Helens in 1980, physical models can now fairly accurately to them. The practical value of volcanology in which provided the spark for a renaissance in reproduce the main large-scale features of blast assessing volcanic hazards is clear. modern volcanology. By means of 3D multiphase scenarios. Such an improvement in modelling flow numerical simulations, the researchers’ work capability will make it possible to more The field has traditionally relied on mapping of demonstrated that the blast-front propagation, effectively map potential blast flows at blast- past eruptions to estimate the threat from future final run-out and damage can be explained by dangerous volcanoes worldwide. blasts, but following pioneering, collaborative the emplacement of an unsteady, stratified achievements such as those of Drs Amanda pyroclastic density current, controlled by gravity The results are a tribute to the fully 3D transient Clarke and Augusto Neri, based at Arizona State and terrain morphology. multiphase flow code – Pyroclastic Dispersal University (ASU) and the Istituto Nazionale di Analysis Code (PDAC) – recently developed by Geofisica e Vulcanologia (INGV), respectively, 30 years after the 1980 eruption, supercomputer Ongaro and his colleagues at INGV. PDAC utilises volcanologists increasingly rely on numerical and simulations have allowed the team to reproduce the power of supercomputers, with runs using 8 laboratory models to understand the process and and analyse the large-scale features of this blast, million computational cells, and with each run mitigate hazards. which devastated a broad area of 600 km2 north (simulating about 400 s of the real event) taking of the volcano and about 10,000 hours of CPU time, equivalent (at resulted in the deaths that time) to about five days on 128 AMD cores at of 57 people. Initial 2.4 GHz in parallel execution. conditions, triggering the violent explosion NOTORIUS