Dr John Stix - Forecasting and predicting volcanic eruptions

The purpose of this talk is to give an overview of forecasting volcanic eruptions, with focus on sudden explosive events. I will discuss a variety of geophysical and geochemical datasets which constitute the volcanologist’s “toolbox”. I will show some interesting results from a number of recent eruptions, several of which I have been involved in from a research perspective. The concept of timescales is fundamentally important, as we can use different forecasting timescales to better constrain volcano behaviour. The involvement of magma in explosive eruptions is another interesting question, because often the products of an eruption (e.g., the ash) contain little or no juvenile magmatic material. Finally, I will examine our current and future ability to forecast eruptions, and I will end by mentioning the volcanologist’s holy grail, whether we can at times truly predict a volcanic eruption.