Geomorphological map of the 1944 Vesuvius lava flow
(Italy)
GIUSEPPE VILARDO1 and GUIDO VENTURA2
1
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Osservatorio Vesuviano, Via
Diocleziano 128, 80124 Napoli, Italy vilardo@ov.ingv.it
2
Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanologia, Department Seismology and
Tectonophysics, Via di Vigna Murata 605, 00143 Roma, Italy
1
ventura@ingv.it
Abstract
The map of the 1944 lava flow shows the geomorphological characteristics of a
sector of the Vesuvius volcano (Italy) covered by the products emitted during the last
effusive phase. The map has been produced based on the analysis and
interpretation of (a) thematic maps (slope, aspect, relative relief) derived from a high
resolution (0.33 m pixel) Digital Terrain Model (DTM) obtained by a Airborne Laser
Scanning (ASL) survey, and (b) a 1 m pixel digital colour orthophoto. Different flow
structures and morphologies have been recognized. The analytical approach
proposed here can be used to characterize the smaller scale
topographic/geomorphological features of volcanoes and gives constraints on the
mechanism of emplacement and modelling strategies of lava flows.
1.
Introduction
Lidar (Light detection and ranging) remote sensing from aerial platforms has been
applied to the mapping of the Earth surface because Lidar-derived data allow us to
produce high resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) or digital terrain models
(DTMs) (Gamba and Houshmand, 2002; Dal Cin et al., 2005; Shrestha et al., 2005;
Glenn et al., 2006). The possibility to obtain information on the terrain topography
makes this technique suitable for studies in hydrology, geomorphology, geology, and
geotechnical engineering (Irish and Lillycrop, 1999; Roering et al., 1999; Carter et al.,
2001; Woolard and Colby, 2002; Hofton and Blair, 2002; Glenn et al., 2006). In a
volcanic environment, Lidar data acquired from an aerial platform are commonly
used to determine the volume of lava flows or pyroclastic flow deposits and measure
topographic changes (Carabajal et al., 2005; Mazzarini et al., 2005; Mouginis-Mark
and Garbeil, 2005; Hofton et al., 2006). Here, we use a different methodological
approach: a Lidar-derived, high resolution (0.33 m x 0.33 m) DTM of a lava emitted
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from the Vesuvius volcano (Italy) in 1944 is analyzed to obtain a detailed
geomorphological map of the lava surface. Results allow us to decipher the kinematic
significance of the lava flow structures and to put constraints on the mechanism of
emplacement and modelling of lava flows.
2.
The 1944 eruption and its effusive phase
The 1944 eruption started on March 18 and ceased on March 29. Four main phases
characterized this eruption (Imbò, 1945, 1949; Pesce and Rolandi, 2000; Kilburn and
McGuire, 2001; Guest et al., 2003): (1) lava flows (March 18, 16:30 - March 21,
17:00), (2) lava fountains (March 21, 17:00 - March 22, 12:00) (3) large explosions
(March 22, 12:00 - March 23, 14:00), (4) weak explosions (March 23, 14:00 – March
29, 08:00). The consequences of the eruption include the destruction of the villages
of S. Sebastiano and Massa di Somma, which are located about 5.3 km East of the
Vesuvius crater (Fig. 1).
Figure 1 - Location and simplified geological map of the Somma-Vesuvius volcano
superimposed on a shaded relief image of the Digital Terrain Model (UTM WGS84
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projection, distance in km). Contour lines are 100 m spaced. Geological data are from
Santacroce (1987) and Santacroce et al. (2003). The black rectangle shows the area
of the 1944 lava flow analyzed in this work.
The chronology of the effusive phase may be summarized as follows: (a) March 18,
16:30. Lavas overflowed the northern and southern crater rims (Fig. 1). The northern
lava moved initially on the northern outer flank of the crater, and bent to the west
when it reached the caldera floor (Fig. 1). At 23:00, a new outpouring of lava
occurred from the western crater rim. (b) March 19, 09:00. A new outpouring of lava
occurred from the northern crater rim. This flow covered part of the northern lava
emitted on March 18. (c) March 21, 1:00. The northern lava flow reached the villages
of S. Sebastiano and Massa di Somma. At the end of the eruption, the total length of
this lava flow is 5.6 km. The volume of the 1944 lava flows is ~106 m3 (Imbò, 1949).
3.
Lidar data and DTM
The Airborne Laser Scanning (ALS) data were acquired on January 2005 from an
aerial platform operated by Nuova Avioriprese SrL Company of Napoli (Italy) using
an Optech ALTM 2050 Lidar (LIght Detection And Ranging) system. The Lidar survey
covered the northern and central sectors of the Somma caldera, which includes the
Vesuvius cone and the northern flow of the 1944 lava (Fig. 1). The sensor, which
acquires data at a rate of 50 kHz, was mounted on a fixed wing aircraft flying with a
minimum airspeed of approximately 50 m s-1. The data were collected from an
altitude of approximately 700 m, resulting in a footprint diameter of 0.20 m for each
laser pulse. Both first and last pulse data sets were acquired, each consisting of over
17 million individual postings covering an area of about 2,000 hectares. The data
were collected in eight, 600 m wide flight lines. The overlap of the flightlines is about
30%. The sensor utilizes a high-end Applanix Pos/AV Inertial Navigation System
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(INS) and a dual-frequency NovAtel Millennium GPS receiver. The Vesuvius survey
was georeferenced using a GPS reference station on a IGM95 geodetic point. The
collected data were integrated with those obtained from GPS/INS to obtain the raw
data. The analysis of the times between first and last pulses allowed us to
discriminate between the elevation points and those related to vegetation or artificial
features. The final point cloud covering the 1944 lava flow area, which is free of
vegetation, includes about 4 million elevation points with densities up to12 points m -2
(Fig. 2a). No data are available for the westernmost sector of the 1944 lava.
Figure 2 - Lidar survey (June 2005). (a) Sampling density (number of data/m2) of the
1944 lava flow; (b) Shaded relief image of the 0.33 m x 0.33 m DTM. The boundary of the
1944 lava flow is also reported. (UTM WGS84 projection, distance in km).
The altimetry accuracy is ≤ 20 cm based on total station and GPS single point
elevation. A regular 0.33 by 0.33 m elevation grid was created from the Lidar
elevation points by means of the Kriging interpolation method (Oliver and Webster
1990). The shaded-relief map from the resultant DTM of the 1944 lava flow is shown
5
in Fig. 2b. Detailed analyses performed on the Digital Terrain Model derived from
high resolution Lidar data allows us to recognize different flow surfaces and
morphometric parameters the 1944 lava flow. The results were used to reconstruct
the flow kinematics and to obtain information on the mechanism of emplacement
(Ventura and Vilardo, 2008).
4.
Analysis and results
We used the DTM produced by the Lidar height data to derive the following
thematic maps the of the 1944 lava flow: slope, relative relief and aspect. Slope was
determined for each grid cell following the method of Moore et al. (1993). The relative
relief was calculated from the difference between the maximum and minimum altitude
within a moving window of 3 x 3 (0.99 x 0.99 m) grid cells (Oguchi, 1997). The aspect,
which measures the downhill (dip) direction of each cell, was estimated based on the
method of Wilson and Galland (2000). The maps of the slope, relative relief and
aspect are shown as thematic maps in the geomorphological map of the 1944 lava
flow (file: Vesuvius1944lava.pdf). Lava blocks were recognized in the following way.
A topographic map with contour lines spaced at 1 m height interval is generated and
all the contour lines representing closed polygons are selected. We identified the
blocks of lava by selecting the polygons containing grid cells higher than the
enclosing contour line.
The data from the thematic maps (slope, relative relief and aspect), the DTM
from Lidar heights, and a high resolution (1 m x 1m) digital ortophoto are used to
draw the geomorphological map of the 1944 lava flow (file: Vesuvius1944lava.pdf).
The map shows the following flow features: break in slope due to overflow on artificial
walls, crack or fracture, fold, block, ridge, flow direction, lava leveé, channelled flow,
flow lobe and Toe-like flow.
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Flow levée, toe-like flow, folds, lobes and ridges are derived from the analysis of
slope and relative relief. Flow levée represents the lateral walls of the lava, where the
flow velocity is lower with respect to the central sector of the lava channel. Levée
may also form by changes in the flow rate within the channel. In the 1944 lava, toelike flows are generally associated to the flow units outcropping on the northern
flanks of the crater. Along with folds, which are structures related to flow shortening,
the toe-like flows testify a decrease in the slope of the substratum. Lobes and ridges
represent the front and lateral boundary of single flow units, respectively. Channelled
flows are derived from the analysis of aspect. The distribution of blocks is also
included in the map together with the inferred flow directions, cracks, and breaks in
slope. The breaks represent pre-1944 artificial barriers overlain by the lava. Flow
direction was extracted from the aspect map. Crack and break in slope were derived
from the shaded relief images of the DTM and orthophoto, and from the slope map,
respectively. Cracks are related to the rupture of the upper crust of lava flows. The
width of the lava is measured along 180 cross sections perpendicular to a
longitudinal section of the lava. The lava flow width and elevation are reported as
ancillary data in the geomorphological map.
5.
Conclusions
The data presented here show that high-resolution DEM of lava flows may be used to
map and quantitatively estimate some relevant topographic parameters of lava flows.
The map of the 1944 lava clearly shows that the flow can be divided in three main
portions: (a) a near vent portion characterized by a toe-like surface, (b) an
intermediate portion with a brittle surface in which lava blocks and cracks concentrate,
and (c) a more distal portion with a poorly fragmented and/or broken surface. Foldlike surfaces occur in the near vent sector and reflect local shortening processes due
7
to a decrease in the slope of the substratum and to overflows from the main channel.
It is worth nothing that the distal and intermediate portions of the 1944 lava emplaced
between March 18 and 21, whereas the more proximal portion emplaced on March
19 and partly covered the units emplaced on March 18. Lateral leveés and channels
occur in the intermediate and distal portions. Therefore, the map of the 1944 lava
flows identifies three parts of the flows characterized by different mechanisms of
emplacement. In particular, we highlight that the transition from the intermediate to
the distal portion is due, according to the altitude and slope thematic maps, to an
abrupt increase in the slope of the substratum. This is relatively anomalous in
volcanic terrains, which are generally characterized by a decrease in the slope with
decreasing altitude. As a result, the detailed mapping of lava flows allow us to detect
morphological features related to changes in the slope of the substratum. In addition,
our data show that the 1944 lava is characterized by an intermediate portion with
feature consistent with an tube-like flow, whereas the more distal portion have
features consistent with a sheet-like, channelized flow. The above reported results
have implications for the physical modelling of lava flows because tube-like and
sheet-like flows require different modelling strategies (e.g., Sakimoto and Gregg,
2001). This is particularly important for the analysis of the emplacement mechanisms
and for the characterization of the small scale topographic features of volcanoes.
Acknowledgments
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This study has been carried out with funds from the Campanian Region (Italy). We
thank the two JoMap reviewers for the very useful comments and Mike Smith for the
editorial handling.
Software
DTM was created from the Lidar elevation points by using Surfer® 8 by Golden
Software Inc.. Also slope, relative relief and aspect maps was processed in Surfer ® 8
software. The quantitative DTM analyses for the extraction of the morphological
features have been done using ArcGISTM by ESRI. Erdas IMAGINE© 9.0 software by
Leica Geosystem was used for photointerpretative analyses of DTM derived maps.
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Map Design
Due to the lack of an internationally accepted, standard symbol list for the
geomorphological structures of lava flows, we decided to use, where possible,
standard geomorphological symbols (for example: blocks, flow directions, fold axis,
cracks), and new symbols otherwise (for example: toe-like flow, lava leveè boundary,
flow lobes). Thematic maps include colour scales different for each map due to the
different data range and types. All the maps are in UTM projection.
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