Stephen Self | |
---|---|
Nationality | British |
Alma mater | University of Leeds (BSc, 1970) Imperial College (PhD, 1974) |
Known for | Climate impacts of volcanism; flood basalts and supereuptions. |
Scientific career | |
Fields | Volcanologist |
Institutions | Arizona State University University of Texas, Arlington University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Open University Nuclear Regulatory Commission |
Doctoral advisor | George P.L. Walker |
Stephen Self is a British volcanologist, best known for his work on large igneous provinces and on the global impacts of volcanic eruptions. [1] [2]
Self graduated from Leeds University in 1970, with a BSc in geology. He then went to Imperial College to study for a PhD on the recent volcanology of Terceira, [3] Azores, supervised by George P. L. Walker. After completing his PhD thesis in 1974, Self moved to New Zealand as a post-doctoral fellow at Victoria University, Wellington, before moving to the United States as a NASA Research Fellow, first at Dartmouth College from 1977 to 1979 and then at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (1977–1979). He was Assistant Professor at Arizona State University from 1979 to 1983, and later Associate Professor and then Professor at University of Texas, Arlington from 1983 to 1990. [4] In 1990, Self moved to the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu as Professor, before returning to the UK in 2001 to take up a Chair in Volcanology at The Open University. From 2008 to 2018, Self worked for the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission as Senior Volcanologist. He is currently adjunct Professor at University of California, Berkeley. [5]
Self has made many contributions to volcanology through his research and publications. He is best known for his work on very large eruptions and their impacts. With Christopher G. Newhall he conceived the Volcanic Explosivity Index in 1982, [6] which is still widely used as a comparator of eruption sizes. With Michael R. Rampino, Self developed hypotheses about the links between large explosive volcanic eruptions and climate, [7] and published studies on the large Quaternary eruptions of Toba, Tambora and Krakatoa, among others. [8] [9] [10] [11] With Thor Thordarsson, Self has also written extensively on the Icelandic eruptions of 1783–4, [12] and on the emplacement and inflation of large basaltic lava flows. [13]
Self was Vice-President of the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth's Interior from 2011-2015. [14] In 2012, he was elected Fellow of the American Geophysical Union; an honour which recognises 'individual members who have made exceptional scientific contributions and attained acknowledged eminence'. [15] He has also been elected Fellow of the Geological Society of America.
A supervolcano is a volcano that has had an eruption with a volcanic explosivity index (VEI) of 8, the largest recorded value on the index. This means the volume of deposits for such an eruption is greater than 1,000 cubic kilometers.
A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface.
The volcanic explosivity index (VEI) is a relative measure of the explosiveness of volcanic eruptions. It was devised by Christopher G. Newhall of the United States Geological Survey and Stephen Self in 1982.
Mount Tambora, or Tomboro, is an active stratovolcano in West Nusa Tenggara, Indonesia. Located on Sumbawa in the Lesser Sunda Islands, it was formed by the active subduction zones beneath it. Before 1815, its elevation reached more than 4,300 metres high, making it one of the tallest peaks in the Indonesian archipelago.
The Toba eruption was a supervolcano eruption that occurred around 74,000 years ago during the Late Pleistocene at the site of present-day Lake Toba in Sumatra, Indonesia. It is one of the largest known explosive eruptions in the Earth's history. The Toba catastrophe theory holds that this event caused a severe global volcanic winter of six to ten years and contributed to a 1,000-year-long cooling episode, leading to a genetic bottleneck in humans.
A volcanologist, or volcano scientist, is a geologist who focuses on understanding the formation and eruptive activity of volcanoes. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, sometimes active ones, to observe and monitor volcanic eruptions, collect eruptive products including tephra, rock and lava samples. One major focus of inquiry in recent times is the prediction of eruptions to alleviate the impact on surrounding populations and monitor natural hazards associated with volcanic activity. Geologists who research volcanic materials that make up the solid Earth are referred to as igneous petrologists.
Plinian eruptions or Vesuvian eruptions are volcanic eruptions marked by their similarity to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The eruption was described in a letter written by Pliny the Younger, after the death of his uncle Pliny the Elder.
The Sunda Arc is a volcanic arc that produced the volcanoes that form the topographic spine of the islands of Sumatra, Nusa Tenggara, and Java, the Sunda Strait and the Lesser Sunda Islands. The Sunda Arc begins at Sumatra and ends at Flores, and is adjacent to the Banda Arc. The Sunda Arc is formed via the subduction of the Indo-Australian Plate beneath the Sunda and Burma plates at a velocity of 63–70 mm/year.
Haraldur Sigurðsson or Haraldur Sigurdsson is an Icelandic volcanologist and geochemist.
George Patrick Leonard Walker was a British geologist who began his career studying mineralogy and later made significant contributions to volcanology. He was widely regarded as one of the pioneers of modern quantitative volcanology.
Trachyandesite is an extrusive igneous rock with a composition between trachyte and andesite. It has little or no free quartz, but is dominated by sodic plagioclase and alkali feldspar. It is formed from the cooling of lava enriched in alkali metals and with an intermediate content of silica.
Christopher G. Newhall is a volcanologist, formerly with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Earth Observatory of Singapore. He is the co-creator of the Volcanic explosivity index and specializes in volcanic prediction.
This timeline of volcanism on Earth includes a list of major volcanic eruptions of approximately at least magnitude 6 on the Volcanic explosivity index (VEI) or equivalent sulfur dioxide emission during the Quaternary period. Other volcanic eruptions are also listed.
The 1808 mystery eruption refers to one or potentially multiple unidentified volcanic eruptions that resulted in a significant rise in stratospheric sulfur aerosols, leading to a period of global cooling analogous to the Year Without a Summer in 1816.
Michael R. Rampino is a Geologist and Professor of Biology and Environmental Studies at New York University, known for his scientific contributions on causes of mass extinctions of life. Along with colleagues, he's developed theories about periodic mass extinctions being strongly related to the earth's position in relation to the galaxy. "The solar system and its planets experience cataclysms every time they pass "up" or "down" through the plane of the disk-shaped galaxy." These ~30 million year cyclical breaks are an important factor in evolutionary theory, along with other longer 60-million- and 140-million-year cycles potentially caused by mantle plumes within the planet, opining "The Earth seems to have a pulse," He is also a research consultant at NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City.
There are two large sulfate spikes caused by mystery volcanic eruptions in the mid-1400s: the 1452/1453 mystery eruption and 1458 mystery eruption. Before 2012, the date of 1458 sulfate spike was incorrectly assigned to be 1452 because previous ice core work had poor time resolution. The exact location of this eruption is uncertain, but possible candidates include the submerged caldera of Kuwae in the Coral Sea, Mount Reclus and Tofua caldera. The eruption is believed to have been VEI-7.