The flow behavior of active lava lakes explored through laboratory simulation

To date, an investigation of lava lake convection as affected by variations in both heat loss and gas loss has yet to be performed. The effects of an ascending dilute gas bubble column on a thermally convecting body and a thermally stable body have been observed by diffusely injecting an immiscible fluid into a three dimensional tank of water. Observations of plume and individual bubble motions within the tank were made for bubble plumes in thermally stable and convecting environments. Analysis of the resulting data suggests that both heat flux and gas flux play an important role in the flow behavior of active lava lakes and that fluid motion at depth may be chaotic between the gas-driven and thermally-driven end-member systems. Based on these results, qualitative analysis of fluid motions at depth at active lava lakes may be made based on surface observations.