Dynamics and Deposits of Pyroclastic Density Currents in Magmatic and Phreatomagmatic Eruptions Revealed by a Two‐Layer Depth‐Averaged Model

Abstract

Abstract A pyroclastic density current (PDC) is characterized by its strong stratification of particle concentration; it consists of upper dilute and lower dense currents, which generally control the dynamics and deposits of PDCs, respectively. To explain the relationship between the dynamics and deposits for magmatic and phreatomagmatic eruptions in a unified way, we developed a two‐layer PDC model considering thermal energy conservation for mixing of pyroclasts, external water, and air. The results show that the run‐out distance of dilute currents increases with the mass fraction of external water at the source (wmw) owing to the suppression of thermal expansion of entrained air. For wmw ∼ 0.07–0.38, the particle concentration in the dilute current becomes too low to generate the dense current so that the deposits directly form at the bottom of the dilute current in the entire area. These results capture the diverse features of natural PDCs in magmatic and phreatomagmatic eruptions.

Keywords

• volcanology
• pyroclastic density current
• phreatomagmatic eruption
• sedimentology
• gravity current
• depth‐averaged model