Hello!!
I figured that as I'm sat in my office procrastinating I may as well do something useful and give you some background as to why I'm going and where exactly I am going.
Volcan de Colima is the Southern volcano and has a height of 3860m. I will be working on and camping on the higher Nevado de Colima, 6km to the North.
The plan is to spend a couple of days meeting the scientists at the Colima Volcano Observatory based at the University of Colima in Colima town, approximately 30km south of Volcan de Colima. We will then be going into the field with one of the observatory staff, Carlos, who will act as our guide and driver as he has worked on the volcano for years and knows where he needs to take us to collect our samples. We need to collect bags of up to 5 kilos of each deposit in multiple locations to carry out the work needed. By collecting in multiple locations I'll be able to correlate deposits and hopefully get an idea of the size of the eruption. Anyway, enough of the boring stuff - I've already been called a geek!!! I'll post as many photos as I can for you, some of them including wee Eric!
My PhD project is to look at the evolution of Volcan de Colima over the past 30,000 years by looking in detail at the geochemistry and mineralogy (using the techniques described in my last post) of eruption deposits. Deposits have been dated as far back as 30,000 years using carbon dating of charcoal fragments - trees and branches caught and burned in pyroclastic flows; and forest fires caused by ejectiles from the volcano. By looking in detail at these deposits, I will hopefully be able to work out how the volcano has grown and evolved through time and whether there are obvious cycles in it's behaviour. Because the volcano is continuously erupting (ash clouds are seen daily rising from the cone), we can compare current deposits to these older deposits which will hopefully enable us to predict the volcano's future behaviour.
The literature describes 100 year cycles for the volcano culminating in massive explosive eruptions in 1818 and 1913. It's now 2010.... if the volcano does follow a 100 year cycle we should see a massive explosive eruption in the next few years... However, the earth's processes rarely follow nice patterns and keep to them, so the question is what will happen next? At the moment it's happily puffing away, but the lava dome has now filled the crater, so something has to happen. Will another massive eruption occur? Will the lava just overflow and pour down the side? (If so I want to be there to see that!!!) Or will it just stop? These are the questions that I'm hoping to answer, so let's hope it doesn't do anything in the next couple of years otherwise I have to think of a new project!!!
Volcan de Colima is in the West of Mexico:
Volcan de Colima is in the red box which is enlarged below.
Volcan de Colima is the Southern volcano and has a height of 3860m. I will be working on and camping on the higher Nevado de Colima, 6km to the North.
The plan is to spend a couple of days meeting the scientists at the Colima Volcano Observatory based at the University of Colima in Colima town, approximately 30km south of Volcan de Colima. We will then be going into the field with one of the observatory staff, Carlos, who will act as our guide and driver as he has worked on the volcano for years and knows where he needs to take us to collect our samples. We need to collect bags of up to 5 kilos of each deposit in multiple locations to carry out the work needed. By collecting in multiple locations I'll be able to correlate deposits and hopefully get an idea of the size of the eruption. Anyway, enough of the boring stuff - I've already been called a geek!!! I'll post as many photos as I can for you, some of them including wee Eric!
I can't believe I'm actually going to go and work on an active volcano. I'm ridiculously excited!! This the whole reason I'm doing this! YAY!!!!!!!
Wish me luck!!!!
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