Models for Melt Viscosity & Magma Rheology

Other Project Members: 
Amy Ryan, Mu Li, Daniele Giordano, Alessandro Vona, Don Dingwell

Magma rheology is key to understanding and predicting the styles and intensities of volcanic eruption. The Rock Mechanics of Volcanic Systems is a new, dynamic, and highly competitive area of research; it lies at the interface between the fields of rock mechanics and experimental volcanology. The goal of this experimentation is to establish the rheological properties of volcanic materials at the elevated conditions attending volcanic eruption. The resulting datasets are used to build constitutive equations that predict the flow of natural magmas as a function of stress, strain-rate, temperature, and crystal content. The constitutive relationships are key to more sophisticated and accurate modelling of volcanic eruptions.