Modeling volcanic unrest by data assimilation

Volcanic activity may lead to potential volcanic eruptions, but it also provides critical information for understanding the physical processes within a volcanic system. Combining multiple observations and advanced physical models allows us to explore the response of the surrounding host rock to changes in the physical condition in a magmatic system. This work focuses on developing and applying a robust data-model fusion framework to investigate the mechanisms involved in volcanic unrest, such as deformation, failure, and pore fluid migration. First, using a series of tests based on the synthetic data, I optimize a data assimilation technique, Ensemble Kalman Filter (EnKF), to improve its performance in forecasting volcanic unrests with multiple geodetic observations. Then, the robustness of the EnKF is confirmed in application to the unrest and 2009 eruption of Kerinci volcano, Indonesia. To understand the effects of uncertain rheology on our model results, I conduct a systematic sensitivity study to determine the impact of rheology on the host-rock failure prediction. With a better understanding of the uncertainties in my models, I establish numerical models by integrating multiple observations to investigate the magma reservoir dynamics, crustal stress, failure-related seismicity, and hydrological interactions of two different magmatic systems, Laguna del Maule in the Andes, Chile, and Atka in the Aleutian, USA. In both systems, the pre-existing structures and pore fluids play critical roles in catalyzing seismicity, redistributing masses, and delaying/trigger eruptions

Pseudoscalar Meson and Decuplet Baryon Scattering Lengths

We have systematically calculated the S-wave pseudoscalar meson and decuplet baryon scattering lengths to the third order in the small scale expansion scheme of the heavy baryon chiral perturbation theory. We hope the future study may test the framework and the present predictions.Comment: 14 pages, 1 figures, 9 table

International Society for Environmental Information Sciences 2010 Annual Conference (ISEIS) Scenario simulation of change of forest land in Poyang Lake watershed

AbstractForest land is the largest carbon storage of the terrestrial ecosystem for its giant biomass and plays a very important and irreplaceable role in mitigating and adapting to the global climate change. Much attention has been paid to its function and role in alleviating and adapting to the global climate change, Poyang Lake watershed as one of the most important wetland nature reserve in the world is also one of the regions where forest land is most densely distributed in China. The authors have studied the spatial dynamics of the forest land in this region during the past 20 years based on panel data of four periods (1988, 1995, 2000, 2005), and comprehensively characterized its changing patterns under the macroscopic context of rapid economic growth, social change and technical progress. A simultaneous equations model was established and the significance ranking of various factors was obtained in order to analyze the driving mechanism of the spatial-temporal process of the forest land. Three scenarios, i.e. economic priority, ecologic conservation and constant scenarios were designed according to the driving mechanism and trends of economic, policy and technical progress. The module functions of Dynamic of Land System (DLS) were employed and extended to develop possible scenarios of spatial-temporal explicit expression of the forest land