Data Library for: Assessing Site-Specific Lava Flow Hazards in a Distributed Volcanic Field Using a Lava Flow Library—Example from the Eastern Snake River Plain Volcanic Field
Description
Data are provided in support of the paper entitled "Assessing Site-Specific Lava Flow Hazards in a Distributed Volcanic Field Using a Lava Flow Library—Example from the Eastern Snake River Plain Volcanic Field". Reference: Connor and others, 2026, "Assessing Site-Specific Lava Flow Hazards in a Distributed Volcanic Field Using a Lava Flow Library—Example from the Eastern Snake River Plain Volcanic Field", chapter in: Distributed volcanism—Characteristics, processes, and hazards, editors: Mike Poland and others, U.S. Geological Survey Professional Paper 1890, DOI 10.3133/pp1890 Files include the lava libraries for the MFC and INTEC sites that ae described in this paper. The data files are libraries - listing of simulation input and output used to asses the probability of lava flow inundation of the MFC and INTEC nuclear facilities. Simulation inputs and outputs are fully explained in the Appendix of the paper. Data columns include the event number (a numerical id for the simulation number), runtime (seconds, the runtime of the simulations, digital elevation cell size (meters), hit (whether or not the lava flow simulation inundated the area of interest), offmap (0 is the lava flow stayed on the map DEM), MaxVolume (the maximum possible volume of the lava flow, cubic kilometers) Volume erupted (the volume of the lava flow erupted when the area if interest was reached, or the total volume of the simulation, cubic kilometers ), number of cells inundated, area inundated (square kilometers), pulse volume (cubic meters), residual thickness (meters), site center easting coordinate and site center northing coordinate (UTM, WGS 84, zone 11).
Files
Steps to reproduce
Lava flow simulations are made with the open-source, open access MOLASSES numerical model. Briefly, MOLASSES is a 2-dimensional cell-based inundation model that sequentially adds pulse volumes of lava to a source cell then calculates the amount over-flowed into neighboring cells. Initial elevation of cells and cell size are based on the DEM chosen. Any DEM may be used with MOLASSES, as long as it is compatible with Geospatial Data Abstraction Library (GDAL) formats. Six parameters and a set of rules are used to find the areal extent of the modeled flow: (1) the first parameter is the source location of the flow; and (2 and 3) initial elevation and grid size come from the DEM that is chosen to be the base of the lava flow model. The remaining three parameters are set by the hazard analyst; (4) total volume of lava to erupt from a source cell; (5) a residual or modal thickness for the lava flow; and (6) a pulse volume defined as a fraction of the total lava volume that is spread sequentially from the source cell to neighboring cells until the total volume is exhausted. Flow simulation progresses according to the following flow distribution rules: Rule 1: Cells develop a parent-child relationship; when a cell receives a thickness of lava greater than the flow residual, this cell becomes a parent cell and proceeds to distribute its excess lava to neighbor cells with lower elevations. These neighboring cells become the children of this parent cell. Parents cannot receive lava back from their children. Child cells can have more than one parent. Lava pools when a parent cell with excess lava has no children. Rule 2: Excess lava is distributed using a weighted-average method based on the difference in slope between a parent cell and each of its children. Child cells with lower elevations get greater amounts of lava, and cardinal children (grid cells that are north, south, east, and west of the parent grid cell) get more lava than diagonal children (grid cells that are northwest, northeast, southwest, and southeast of the parent grid cell). Each child receives a portion of the excess lava. Rule 3: Because child cells can have more than one parent, child cells are able to receive lava from more than one neighbor. Rule 4: Excess lava from a parent cell is distributed to its child cells in a random order. Rule 5: Lava is distributed incrementally until the total volume has been exhausted or until the flow breaches a pre-determined site boundary or until the flow reaches the boundary of the DEM, whichever event happens first. Rule 6: Each cell within the AOI, such as the area of a facility or population center, is tagged on the DEM. If one of these tagged cells is inundated by lava, the code stops and reports that the AOI has been inundated. If the AOI is reached, the total input volume is not reached at the end of the simulation. The simulated volume is the volume fraction that erupted up until the AOI boundary is reached.
Institutions
- University of South FloridaFlorida, Tampa