L. Wilson et Ea. Parfitt, THE FORMATION OF PERCHED LAVA PONDS ON BASALTIC VOLCANOS - THE INFLUENCE OF FLOW GEOMETRY ON COOLING-LIMITED LAVA FLOW LENGTHS, Journal of volcanology and geothermal research, 56(1-2), 1993, pp. 113-123
Analysis of the formation of morphologically distinctive perched lava
ponds produced in effusive basaltic eruptions focusses attention on th
e ways in which cooling and fluid dynamics interact to limit the dista
nce a lava flow can travel. If a previously channelised flow spreads l
aterally on encountering a sudden decrease in the slope of the substra
te or some other abrupt change in topography, its speed and thickness
decrease progressively, in a way dictated by the requirements of mass
and energy conservation. There is a consequent dramatic increase in he
at loss from the lava as it thins. Where a flow spreads approximately
radially in this way, it may form a perched lava pond. The high heat l
oss limits the size of any such pond to be at most a few hundred meter
s under almost all circumstances. Pond size depends much more strongly
on lava volume flux than on any other physical parameter involved in
the system, and the formation of these features provides a means of es
timating eruption rates in paleo-eruptive episodes.