Advances in the rheology of natural multiphase silicate melts: importance for magma transport and lava flow emplacement

A review of recent advances in the field of rheology of multicomponent silicate melts and multiphase silicate melt suspensions is presented here. The advances include the development of new experimental devices and field and remote sensing methods for measuring the rheological properties of natural melts and magmas. These promising approaches combine laboratory experiments, theoretical models, numerical simulations and remote sensing data derived from ground, airborne and satellite-based tools. Each of these sub-disciplines has evolved rapidly in recent years and the growing range of complementary data appears now to provide an opportunity for the development of multi-disciplinary research. Ultimately, these multidisciplinary initiatives seek to provide near-real-time forecasting of hazardous volcanic processes such as lava flow field evolution. The results and approaches described here focus on multiphase (i.e. melts, bubbles, crystals) rheology of natural systems and are pertinent to the effusive emplacement of lavas, dykes and sills, as well as, to the eruption dynamics attending explosive eruptions.