Thomas Giachetti

The exchange opportunity at the University of Oregon (UO) would enable a Chile-based student to be part of an ongoing NSF-Frontier in the Earth Sciences Project entitled ‚"The interplay of surface evolution, shallow magmatism, a large hydrothermal system, and hazards at Puyehue-Cordon Caulle Volcanic Complex, Chile", which is a collaborative project between five US institutions and four collaborating institutions in Chile. The ongoing project takes a multi-disciplinary approach to study the emplacement and evolution of near surface magma during the 2011-12 Cordon Caulle eruption. Recent field work has led to a first set of preliminary data that are currently being processed and interpreted, including volcanological, geophysical, and hydrological data. The group at the University of Oregon is a partner institution of this project, which is led by the University of Nevada-Reno.

There will be two lines of potential research involvement at UO as part of this project:
1) The visiting student will be involved in data collection and sample preparation related to the transitional volcanic activity as Plinian activity ceased and the effusive eruption of silicic lava commenced.
2) Quantitative analysis of the texture of porous and non-porous samples collected during the austral summers of 2022 and 2025.

The emplaced magma represents a major hazard in this region that may be triggered by future volcanic activity, by shaking associated with earthquakes (the nearby 1960 eruption is the best example of earthquake triggered volcanism), or by mass unloading associated with landslides and other surface processes.

As this project has a built-in component of inviting research participation from outside the PI and collaborator team, we consider this an additional opportunity for network building across the already strong US-Chile collaboration. This project may serve an important test bed to see how SZNet can be incorporated into ongoing research activities