Visiting Researchers
 |
Institute |
Institute of Geophysics, Victoria University of Wellington |
Title |
Associate Professor | |
Country |
New Zealand | |
Period of Stay |
2008/04/01 - 2008/06/30 | |
Research Theme |
Seismic Anisotropy as a potential stress indicator on volcanoes | |
Host Researcher |
Ohminato TAKAO |
My name is Martha Savage. I received my PhD from University of Wisconsin-Madison. I am Associate Professor of Geophysics at Victoria University, Wellingon. My main field of research is the study of seismic anisotropy. It is a rapidly growing field which is yielding information on the orientation of cracks in the crust and aligned minerals in the mantle. These can in turn be related to deformation within the Earth. Exciting developments are suggesting anisotropy may be used as a tool to study stress changes on volcanoes, which could lead to new methods of eruption forecasting. In New Zealand, we have seen changes of close to 90 degrees in the fast orientation on Mt. Ruapehu volcano, which correlated with an eruption episode. We have interpreted this as caused by intrusion and emptying of a dyke or dyke system which changed the local orientation of the stress field. The focus of my research here at ERI is to try to test our hypotheses on Japanese volcanoes, some of which have had well-documented magmatic intrusions and/or eruptions and which we therefore expect may show similar changes.
This is my first visit to Japan and I am looking forward to working with the fantastic datasets and the excellent researchers here at ERI. I will later be working in collaboration with staff at Aso volcano observatory and the University of Kyoto. I think that the parallels in the tectonics of New Zealand and Japan make our countries have a natural affinity and I hope that we can continue such collaborations in the future.