There are extra volcanoes in Alaska than in some other state, and the Alaska Volcano Observatory retains a watch on which of them present indicators of unrest.
AVO volcanologists measure seismic and infrasound exercise on greater than 20 volcanoes, they usually look ahead to visible indicators like ash clouds through satellite tv for pc and webcam.
Now, a gaggle of scientists from Colorado is utilizing a brand new know-how to measure volcanic exercise: drones. By attaching gasoline detectors to the unmanned plane and flying them over volcanic vents, scientists can measure output to “odor” if a volcano’s exercise is altering.
In August, KUCB’s Andy Lusk sat down with AVO’s Christoph Kern. He labored with the drones alongside Black Swift Applied sciences CEO and co-founder Jack Elston, in addition to its chief know-how officer Maciej Stachura.
This dialog has been edited barely for size and readability.
KUCB: Why are you right here? What brings you to Unalaska Island?
Kern: We’re out right here to take some measurements of volcanic gasses and photogrammetry measurements of the summit of Makushin Volcano. The brand new factor about what we’re doing this time round — we did it as soon as two years in the past — is that we’re making an attempt to do that with out the usage of a helicopter or a fixed-wing plane. We’re doing it solely reliant on a drone.
KUCB: Within the easiest phrases, what sort of tech are you utilizing?
Stachura: The drones we’re utilizing for this mission, we initially developed in partnership with NASA as a brand new plane for his or her Earth science missions.
Initially, we have been doing a little calibration of satellites that they’ve. However as time went on, we acquired extra requests to do missions.
I wouldn’t name this the head when it comes to challenges, however there’s loads of good engineering enhancements as a result of the objective is to fly in these sorts of environments. This particular plane design has flown in Greenland, it’s flown in actually scorching climate, it’s flown over volcanoes within the jungles of Costa Rica, it’s flown at actually excessive altitudes.
KUCB: Since you’re launching proper from the airstrip on the airport, proper?
Kern: Yeah, we’ve been launching straight from the airport right here in Dutch Harbor. The concept is to develop a know-how that can be utilized from a protected distance within the occasion of an erupting volcano. Which means not less than 10 miles.
Elston: One of many explanation why we picked Makushin is we didn’t need to take a ship to get to it.
KUCB: Whenever you’re mapping one thing like Makushin, how lengthy does that whole course of take?
Kern: For photogrammetry, you break it down into two elements. One half is the acquisition of the info, mainly simply taking pictures. For that, you must be certain that your pictures have sufficient overlap. You’re flying forwards and backwards — form of like mowing the garden over among the volcano — taking tons of of images.
The pc does loads of heavy lifting on the evaluation aspect. In actual fact, the photogrammetric analyses are among the most computationally costly, we are saying. You feed the pictures right into a software program that then can take wherever from minutes to a number of hours to course of these and convert them into what we’re after, which is the digital elevation mannequin.
These fashions, relying on the decision of the cameras and the altitude at which the plane flies above the bottom, are likely to have precision on the order of centimeters. They’re very, very correct.
KUCB: How do you cope with the problem of snow provided that we’re in Alaska? That looks as if an issue.
Kern: We’re specializing in areas which might be snow-free, and there are literally fairly just a few. These are there as a result of there are scorching gasoline emissions, so among the craters don’t have snow in them. We’re seeing whether or not these craters are altering their form. That really might be indicative of adjusting exercise of the volcano itself.
By way of the gasoline measurements that we’re additionally making, we’re making an attempt to measure two issues. We’re measuring the composition of the gasses which might be emitted, and the emission price — that’s how a lot gasoline per hour or day. Each of these are indicative of processes which might be occurring inside the volcano itself.
KUCB: Final query. When will the outcomes of your research be printed and when can the general public know what you came upon right here?
Kern: It’ll be one other couple of weeks earlier than these outcomes are made public, however they may most certainly be a USGS knowledge launch, and there might be a bit of little bit of interpretation there as properly. They’ll be posted on-line on the USGS knowledge portal, ScienceBase.
