Representivity of incompletely sampled fall deposits in estimating eruption source parameters: a test using the 12–13 January 2011 lava fountain deposit from Mt. Etna volcano,Italy

The Southeast Crater (SEC) of Mt. Etna, Italy, is renowned for its high activity, mainly long-lived eruptions consisting of sequences of individual paroxysmal episodes which have produced more than 150 eruptive events since 1998. Each episode typically forms eruption columns followed by tephra fallout over distances of up to about 100 km from the vent. One of the last sequences consisted of 25 lava fountaining events, which took place between January 2011 and April 2012 from a pit-vent on the eastern flank of the SEC and built a new scoria cone renamed New Southeast Crater. The first episode on 12–13 January 2011 produced tephra fallout which was unusually dispersed toward to the South extending out over the Mediterranean Sea. The southerly deposition of tephra permitted an extensive survey at distances between ~1 and ~100 km, providing an excellent characterization of the tephra deposit. Here, we document the stratigraphy of the 12–13 January fallout deposit, draw its dispersal, and reconstruct its isopleth map. These data are then used to estimate the main eruption source parameters. The total erupted mass (TEM) was calculated by using four different methodologies which give a mean value of 1.5?±?0.4?×?10⁸ kg. The mass eruption rate (MER) is 2.5?±?0.7?×?10⁴ kg/s using eruption duration of 100 min. The total grain-size (TGS) distribution, peaked at ?3 phi, ranges between ?5 and 5 phi and has a median value of ?1.4 phi. Further, for the eruption column height, we obtained respective values of 6.8–13.8 km by using the method of Carey and Sparks (1986) and 3.4?±?0.3 km by using the methods of Wilson and Walker (1987), Mastin et al. (2009), and Pistolesi et al. (2011) and considering the mean value of MER from the deposit. We also evaluated the uncertainty and reliability of TEM and TGS for scenarios where the proximal and distal samples are not obtainable. This is achieved by only using a sector spanning the downwind distances between 6 and 23 km. This scenario is typical for Etna when the tephra plume is dispersed eastward, i.e., in the prevailing wind direction. Our results show that, if the analyzed deposit has poorer sample coverage than presented in this study, the TEM (3.4?×?10⁷ kg) is 22 % than the TEM obtained from the whole deposit. The lack of the proximal (<6 km) deposit may cause more significant differences in the TGS estimations.     

The state of water resources in major Mediterranean islands

This work analyses the state of water resources in six Mediterranean islands: Corsica, Crete, Cyprus, Mallorca, Malta and Sicily. The analysis is focused on the prevailing social, economic and hydroclimatological characteristics of these islands in order to identify the main common features affecting water availability, demand and use. A detailed analysis of the state of water resources in all the considered islands has been carried out. A background of current conditions relating to freshwater availability, quality and use has been established. Different strategies to face water scarcity and enhance water quality in theislands have been assessed in a context of climate change which is a common threat. The identification of similar problems for all the islands highlights the importance of strengthening inter-islands co-operation in the field of sustainable water resources management.     

Hydrodynamical simulations of the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich effect

With detections of the Sunyaev–Zel'dovich (SZ) effect induced by galaxy clusters becoming routine, it is crucial to establish accurate theoretical predictions. We use a hydrodynamical N -body code to generate simulated maps, of size 1 deg², of the thermal SZ effect. This is done for three different cosmologies: the currently favoured low-density model with a cosmological constant, a critical-density model and a low-density open model. We stack simulation boxes corresponding to different redshifts in order to include contributions to the Compton y -parameter out to the highest necessary redshifts. Our main results are as follows.
(i) The mean y -distortion is around 4×10⁻⁶ for low-density cosmologies, and 1×10⁻⁶ for critical density. These are below current limits, but not by a wide margin in the former case.
(ii) In low-density cosmologies, the mean y -distortion is contributed across a broad range of redshifts, with the bulk coming from z ≲2 and a tail out to z ∼5. For critical-density models, most of the contribution comes from z <1.
(iii) The number of SZ sources above a given y depends strongly on instrument resolution. For a 1-arcmin beam, there are around 0.1 sources per deg² with y >10⁻⁵ in a critical-density Universe, and around 8 such sources per deg² in low-density models. Low-density models with and without a cosmological constant give very similar results.
(iv) We estimate that the Planck satellite will be able to see of order 25 000 SZ sources if the Universe has a low density, or around 10 000 if it has critical density.     

Polarization models of young stellar objects – II. Linear and circular polarimetry of R Coronae Australis

Near-infrared linear imaging polarimetry of the young stellar objects R CrA and T CrA in the J , H and K n bands, and circular imaging polarimetry in the H band, is presented. The data are modelled with the Clark and McCall scattering model. The R CrA and T CrA system is shown to be a particularly complex scattering environment. In the case of R CrA there is evidence that the wavelength dependence of polarization changes across the nebula. MRN dust grain models do not explain this behaviour. Depolarization by line emission is considered as an alternative explanation. The dust grain properties could also be changing across the nebula.
Although surrounded by reflection nebulosity, there is a region of particularly low polarization surrounding R CrA that is best modelled by the canonical bipolar outflow being truncated by an evacuated spherical cavity surrounding the star. The symmetry axis of the nebula appears inclined by 50° to the plane of the sky.
The H -band circular polarimetry of R CrA clearly shows a quadrupolar structure of positive and negative degrees of circular polarization that reach peak magnitudes of ∼5 per cent within our limited map. It is shown that spherical MRN grains are incapable of producing this circular polarization given the observed linear polarization of the R CrA system. Instead, scattering from aligned non-spherical grains is proposed as the operating mechanism.
T CrA is a more archetypical bipolar reflection nebula, and this object is modelled as a canonical parabolic reflection nebula that lies in the plane of the sky. The wavelength independence of linear polarization in the T CrA reflection nebula suggests that the scattering particles are Rayleigh sized. This is modelled with the MRN interstellar grain size distribution.     

Reconstructing eruptive source parameters from tephra deposit: a numerical study of medium-sized explosive eruptions at Etna volcano

Since the 1970s, multiple reconstruction techniques have been proposed and are currently used, to extrapolate and quantify eruptive parameters from sampled tephra fall deposit datasets. Atmospheric transport and deposition processes strongly control the spatial distribution of tephra deposit; therefore, a large uncertainty affects mass derived estimations especially for fall layer that are not well exposed. This paper has two main aims: the first is to analyse the sensitivity to the deposit sampling strategy of reconstruction techniques. The second is to assess whether there are differences between the modelled values for emitted mass and grainsize, versus values estimated from the deposits. We find significant differences and propose a new correction strategy. A numerical approach is demonstrated by simulating with a dispersal code a mild explosive event occurring at Mt. Etna on 24 November 2006. Eruptive parameters are reconstructed by an inversion information collected after the eruption. A full synthetic deposit is created by integrating the deposited mass computed by the model over the computational domain (i.e., an area of 7.5 × 10⁴ km ²). A statistical analysis based on 2000 sampling tests of 50 sampling points shows a large variability, up to 50 % for all the reconstruction techniques. Moreover, for some test examples Power Law errors are larger than estimated uncertainty. A similar analysis, on simulated grain-size classes, shows how spatial sampling limitations strongly reduce the utility of available information on the total grain size distribution. For example, information on particles coarser than ?(?4) is completely lost when sampling at 1.5 km from the vent for all columns with heights less than 2000 m above the vent. To correct for this effect an optimal sampling strategy and a new reconstruction method are presented. A sensitivity study shows that our method can be extended to a wide range of eruptive scenarios including those in which aggregation processes are important. The new correction method allows an estimate of the deficiency for each simulated class in calculated mass deposited, providing reliable estimation of uncertainties in the reconstructed total (whole deposit) grainsize distribution.