The Center of Excellence in Biodiversity and Natural Resource Management (CoEB) and
the ICTP-East African Institute for Fundamental Research jointly invite you to an in-person seminar.

Seminar Title: What controls where and when magma comes to the surface?

Date: Wednesday, 7 June 2023
Time: 4:30 PM Rwandan time (UTC+2)
Venue: UR Nyarugenge Campus, ICTP-EAIFR, 4th floor of Einstein Building, Room 11.

Abstract:
When a fluid flows down a slope, its trajectory and velocity is controlled by the local topography gradient, the fluid viscosity, and fluid-source feeding rate. Magma is a hot viscous fluid which flows beneath the surface inside the crust before, reaching the surface to feed an eruption. We have thus no direct observation and must rely on indirect information such as frozen magma intrusions that have become apparent at the surface due to erosion and/or seismicity and surface displacements induced by magma propagation and measured by field instruments or remote sensing data to infer the driving mechanisms of the propagation. In particular, it is difficult to characterize the physical processes involved and key parameters controlling the propagation. In this talk I will explain how magma is transported in the crust and what physical parameters control the propagation and the velocity using models to interpret available information. I will show how the forecast of where and when the magma will reach the surface can be improved by using new numerical models validated by analogue experiments and by improving the interpretation of geodetic data. I will also highlight the valuable information provided by remote sensing data for volcanic risk management.

Biography:
Virginie Pinel received her Ph.D. degree in Geophysics from the Institut de Physique du Globe de Paris, Paris, France, in 2002. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow supported by the Centre National d’Etudes Spatiales. Since 2004, she has been a Researcher with the Institut de Recherche pour le Développement (IRD). Her main research interests include remote sensing data application to volcanoes study and monitoring as well as magma storage and transport modeling. She pioneered the understanding that surface loads have a critical influence on the stability of magma chambers and the movement of magma. She is an expert on crustal deformation at volcanoes and of analytical, analogue and Finite Element Modelling of volcanic processes. She also applied sequential data assimilation to volcano geodesy.