EAS Seminar Series: Madison Myers - Storage and Evacuation of a Yellowstone Super-Eruption
Location
The EAS Department Seminar Series will be held virtually for the Spring of 2021.
Description
Speaker: Madison Myers
Assistant Professor, Montana State University
Talk Title: Storage and Evacuation of a Yellowstone Super-Eruption
Abstract
Yellowstone volcano has produced two super-eruptions within its 2.2-million-year lifetime. Although we are beginning to unravel the pre-eruptive storage configuration, magma assembly and triggering mechanisms associated with the older Huckleberry Ridge Tuff, our understanding of the younger Lava Creek eruption is just beginning. This talk will explore the field, petrologic and geochemical techniques used to interpret how and where large bodies of magma are stored in the crust and the timeframes by which these events are erupted. Contrary to popular belief, these events can be sluggish, with large time breaks between eruptive units.
Bio
Madison Myers is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Earth Sciences at Montana State University. She arrived at Montana State in 2018 following her PhD at University of Oregon and subsequent postdoc at Laboratoire Magmas et Volcans (UCA). Her research utilizes the chemical signatures of volcanic glasses and host phenocrysts to interpret the timescales and conditions of magma storage, evolution and mobilization that lead to explosive eruptions. Madison is specifically interested in the initial fall deposits of explosive eruptions, which she uses to investigate the processes that allow eruptions to start and stop and fingerprint the final trigger for the larger volcanic event.
Seminars are loosely organized around the theme of “Hazards.”