A new Lancaster volcanologist researches the movement of magma and volcanic particles during eruptions to help forecast the dangers posed by volcanoes.

Dr Thomas Jones has been fascinated by volcanoes since he was an undergraduate, researching how diamonds ‘hitch a ride’ with magma to travel huge distances up to the Earth’s surface.

Now, as a Reader in Volcanology at Lancaster, he is still studying the physics behind the movement of magma and other volcanic materials - how they reach the surface and what happens when they erupt.

He has recently been awarded a Future Leaders Fellowship from UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) to research how magma breaks apart. The Fellowship supports the ‘most talented early career researchers….to develop the next wave of world-class research and innovation leaders in academia and business'. It will enable Thomas to focus full-time on his research for the next 4-7 years.

“If magma is able to break apart you get an explosive volcanic eruption, producing volcanic ash and potentially a volcanic cloud. If the magma cannot break apart you get an effusive eruption, producing a lava flow. It’s a different hazard to manage,” said Thomas, who joined Lancaster University last month from Liverpool University.

“Breaking magma is driven by fluid dynamics. Imagine a water fountain, the water is breaking apart into droplets; very similar things happen during eruptions of runny magma, the dominant form of volcanism.”

The research project involves a mixture of fieldwork (in Hawaii, Tanzania and Canada), numerical modelling and lab experiments. Thanks to this multi-million-pound investment from UKRI, Thomas is setting up novel laboratories that can recreate how magma breaks apart in controlled conditions. It will use custom-made equipment to pull apart oils and syrups, which mimic the behaviour of magma.

“In the lab, we can control things in a really systematic way, what happens when we change the temperature, viscosity or density of a liquid. We will pull apart fluids that mimic magmas and record the physics with a high-speed camera.

“The plan is to apply this to any volcano that erupts runny (low viscosity) magmas, including volcanoes on other planets,” said Thomas, who is collaborating with the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory on the project.

Thomas is also leading a research project, funded by the Natural Environment Research Council, examining the fluid dynamics behind the “biggest killer in volcanology”.

“Pyroclastic density currents are high-temperature mixtures of gas and volcanic particles that move at tens to hundreds of metres per second down volcano sides and can travel for tens of kilometres,” said Thomas.

The research aims to explain how these gas and particle mixtures flow, how particle size and shape change during transport, and how that might affect the mobility of the flows - all subjects we don’t understand at the moment.

The ultimate aim is to help to forecast where and how far these high-temperature currents might travel for specific volcanoes, and so provide warning for communities who might be at risk.

Thomas will be travelling to Ecuador to do fieldwork, collecting samples, and doing measurements on the ground to inform his modelling.

After studying for his PhD at Durham University, Thomas worked at Tubingen University in Germany and Rice University in Houston, Texas before returning to the UK. He decided to move to the Lancaster Environment Centre because “Lancaster is a top place in the UK and internationally for volcanology.”

“It has a lovely, friendly, supportive community, both within the volcanology group and the wider Environment Centre.”

Thomas hopes this will lead to productive collaborations with other volcanologists and beyond and that his new laboratory and equipment may be of use to colleagues in other disciplines.

“Lots of the techniques and equipment I use also apply to other environmental problems such as atmospheric processes, hydrology, even soil science and glaciology. I enjoy collaborating across disciplines, and have previously worked with engineers, material scientists and ecologists.”