Li Wang

“Exploring the mysterious process of magma movement beneath the deep of the volcano”

PhD project title:

Temporal variations of magma movement beneath Axial Seamount.

 

Project description:

The core issue of volcanology is the forecasting problem. To forecast the volcanic eruption, tremendous efforts were carried out to reveal its mechanism. With the development of observation technologies, continuous monitoring techniques become much more popular in volcanology, such as ground deformation, temperature, seismicity, etc. These observations led to more comprehensive knowledge about subaerial volcanism. By contrast, great difficulties of instrument deployment are created by the harsh oceanic environments, leaving most of the submarine volcanism still unclear.

Dynamic magma movement could provide strong evidence of volcanic activities, leading to the possibility of forecasting the volcanic eruption. In this project, we will try to perform multiple marine geophysical methods to investigate the temporal variations of magma movement beneath Axial Seamount, the submarine volcano located at the intersection between Juan de Fuca Ridge and Cobb Hotspot. By means of the latest permanent submarine observatory on its caldera, a series of real-time data is available for monitoring the high-resolution changes of this volcano. Besides, interesting anomalies in the ocean are also what we are interested in figuring out.

Resources: Li Wang's research page