{"id":2231,"date":"2025-03-03T14:38:33","date_gmt":"2025-03-03T14:38:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/?page_id=2231"},"modified":"2026-02-11T19:55:02","modified_gmt":"2026-02-11T19:55:02","slug":"project-8","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/project-8\/","title":{"rendered":"Project 8"},"content":{"rendered":"<h1>Project 8<\/h1>\n<p>Distributed Volcanic Fields (DVFs), consisting of clusters of monogenetic edifices (i.e., created in a single eruption), are one of the most common<br \/>\nexpressions of volcanism on planetary surfaces across the solar system. Often associated with by mafic rock compositions on Earth, DVFs record a wide<br \/>\nvariety of eruptive styles and are very useful when interrogating the eruptive history of a region, helping establish recurrence intervals, volumetric<br \/>\nresurfacing rates and chemical evolution of regional magmatic systems. Morphometric studies ca n be conducted to extract morphometric parameters of<br \/>\nindividual vents (e.g., height-to-width ratio, crater depth, average slope, drainage density) from high-resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) and link<br \/>\nthem to syn- and post-eruptive processes. Existing studies often focus on targeted locations and use disparate DEM types with variable spatial<br \/>\nresolution, making direct comparison between individual DVFs difficult and limiting the scope of their interpretations. In this project, we will be using a<br \/>\ncustom automated algorithm to extract morphometric data from DEMs from a large number of individual vents in Holocene volcanic fields on Earth.<br \/>\nSpecifically, we will use EarthDEM mosaiced data, which are produced from high-resolution satellite imagery to &amp;gt;35 different volcanic fields all over<br \/>\nthe world. Using this extensive database, we will identify quantitative and meaningful links between observed morphology and eruptive and erosional<br \/>\nprocesses, in conjunction with other information such as geochemical, petrological and mineralogical data, relative and absolute ages, eruptive styles,<br \/>\netc. We will generate of a global model for geomorphic aging of cinder cones on Earth, which can be used to estimate the relative age of individual vents<br \/>\nwhen no other data is available.<\/p>\n<p>The student will learn to access, download and manipulate EarthDEM high-resolution models. They will familiarize themselves with the automated<br \/>\nalgorithm and help set up a pipeline for batch processing of large amounts of data using NAU\u2019s High performance Computer cluster, Monsoon. They will<br \/>\ncompile the data to create a comprehensive master database, adding the non-morphometric data for each volcanic field. This database, now searchable<br \/>\nusing a variety of parameters (volcanic cluster name, geographic region, major rock type, etc.), will be used to perform multi-parameter statistical<br \/>\nanalysis (e.g., principal component analysis or PCA) to identify parameters that are linked to one another. Depending on progress, the student will assist<br \/>\nin the definition of a quantitative predictive model to estimate the absolute and\/or relative geomorphic age of volcanic vents, using only morphometric<br \/>\nparameters. Several models may need to be produced to reflect Earth\u2019s large diversity of climates.<\/p>\n<p>We expect this work will lead to the creation of a database of morphometric parameters for distributed volcanic fields on Earth. This database will<br \/>\nconstitute the basis for statistical analysis and investigation of eruptive processes and will grow as individual volcanic fields are analyzed. Depending on<br \/>\nstudent progress, we expect this work will lead to: (1) a conference abstract presenting the results of the study (pending available funds, the student will<br \/>\nbe able to present those results at the conference); and (2) the publication of a scientific paper in a peer-reviewed journal (on which the student will be an<br \/>\nauthor), detailing the results of the morphometric study and clustering analyses on several volcanic fields on Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Project 8 Distributed Volcanic Fields (DVFs), consisting of clusters of monogenetic edifices (i.e., created in a single eruption), are one of the most common expressions of volcanism on planetary surfaces across the solar system. Often associated with by mafic rock compositions on Earth, DVFs record a wide variety of eruptive styles and are very useful [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":575,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_relevanssi_hide_post":"","_relevanssi_hide_content":"","_relevanssi_pin_for_all":"","_relevanssi_pin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_unpin_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_keywords":"","_relevanssi_related_include_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_exclude_ids":"","_relevanssi_related_no_append":"","_relevanssi_related_not_related":"","_relevanssi_related_posts":"","_relevanssi_noindex_reason":"","ring_central_script_selection":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-2231","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2231","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/575"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2231"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2231\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2316,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2231\/revisions\/2316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/nasa-spacegrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2231"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}