Southern Andes Volcano Observatory (OVDAS)

Chile has more than 92 active volcanoes. The Villarrica volcano is the first in the risk ranking, both due to its high level of hazard and population exposed. Its last eruption was in 2015. However, since that date the volcano has presented various episodes of unrest, demanding great efforts from the volcano monitoring team to understand its dynamics in detail. To complement instrumental monitoring, samples of pyroclastic bombs from different episodes of strombolian activity have been collected between 2015 and 2023. The project consists in the petrological study of these samples, and it is intended to serve as a key element to build a conceptual model of Villarrica during its inter-eruptive stage. The candidate will be part of the geology group of the Southern Andes Volcanological Observatory. The candidate is required to have petrological knowledge, and will have the opportunity to integrate the findings with other sources of information, e.g. deformation, gas flux, and thermal anomalies.