Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 4546 (2012) 24
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Physics and Chemistry of the Earth
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/pce
Volcanic ash: A primary agent in the Earth system
D.B. Dingwell, Y. Lavalle , U. Kueppers
Earth & Environmental Sciences, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universitt, Munich, Germany
a r t i c l e i n f o a b s t r a c t
Article history: Volcanic ash, a ubiquitous product of eruptions can have an impact that is local, regional and/or global,
Available online 3 August 2011 depending on the style and intensity of both the eruption and the subsequent interactions with the Earth
system. Here, we review some of the complexities of these important interactions, which combine to
Keywords: determine the role of volcanic ash as an important agent on our planet.
Impacts
Ash
Earth system
Interactions
1. Introduction
One of the most remarkable aspects of volcanic eruptions is their
ability to switch abruptly from relatively low-risk effusive to
high-risk explosive style. The recent sub-glacial eruption at
Eyjafjallajkull in southern Iceland exemplies the threat posed by
such activity. For a few weeks, erupted volcanic ash and gas clouds
were carried downwind across the Atlantic Ocean, Europe, and parts
of the North America, causing severe disruptions in air trafc and
unprecedented economic loss. The societal impact of Eyjafjallajkull
raised a global level of awareness which, following the most recent
(mid-May 2011) activity at Grimsvtn (although brief and relatively
minor) rapidly alarmed the media, fearing a recurrence of volcanic
ash generation and dispersal in the atmosphere.
Volcanic ash generation, a faithful companion of volcanic activ-
ity, is a widespread source of natural hazards resulting from erup-
tions. During its eruption, transport and deposition, ash poses a
range of hazards to human and animal health, infrastructure
(e.g., power blackouts, building collapse), air trafc, and agriculture
over widely varying spatial and temporal scales. A fundamental
understanding of the generation of ash and its role as an agent in
the Earth system is therefore a vital requirement for reliable fore-
casting of ash impact and ash hazards (Fig. 1).
2. What is volcanic ash?
Volcanic ash is a non-genetic term and refers to ne fragments
of magmatic glass shards, magmatic crystals, and other rocks
(lithic material) with a diameter below 2 mm (White and Hough-
ton, 2006). Fundamentally, volcanic ash is an inevitable product
of the fragmentation of magmas and volcanic rocks. Younger tex-
Corresponding author.
E-mail address: lavallee@min.uni-muenchen.de (Y. Lavalle).
1474-7065/$ - see front matter 2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.pce.2011.07.007
2011 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
tural studies have expanded classical views of ash generation and
provided information on the physical (e.g., Buettner et al., 1999;
Rust et al., 2003; Ersoy et al., 2006, 2010; Lautze and Houghton,
2007; Proussevitch et al., 2007; Shea et al., 2009) and chemical
(e.g., Castro et al., 2005; Rust and Cashman, 2007; Castro and Gard-
ner, 2008) state of magma prior to fragmentation.
Novel technologies have now made routine the controlled pro-
duction and characterisation of ash under conditions analogous to
volcanic fragmentation in nature, via (1) bubble bursting due to
decompressive pore gas expansion (c.f., magmatic, Spieler et al.,
2004), (2) magma rupture under controlled high shear rates (Lav-
alle et al., 2008), (3) abrasion from friction and collision (c.f., cata-
clastic, Kueppers et al., this issue), (4) magma-water/ice interaction
(c.f., hydrovolcanic, Austin-Erickson et al., 2008) or (5) phreatic
fragmentation. Recent studies show that the efciency (Kueppers
et al., 2006b) and speed (Scheu et al., 2006) of magmatic fragmen-
tation is consistent with the energy applied to the system (Ala-
torre-Ibargengoitia et al., 2010). Indeed, the fractal dimension of
fragments may provide us with a direct mean to quantify the en-
ergy stored in the magma preceding an explosive eruption (Kuep-
pers et al., 2006a); a quantication which helps predict the
maximal reach of ejected ballistics (Alatorre-Ibargengoitia and
Delgado-Granados, 2006; Alatorre-Ibargengoitia et al., 2006,
2010). Not only do these technological advances help systemati-
cally describe the process of fragmentation, they also provide us
with the opportunity to characterise experimentally-generated
ash and thus to systematise its effects on the atmosphere, the
hydrosphere, the biosphere, and especially on human activity.
3. Impacts on the Earth system
In light of the events associated with the 2010 eruption at Eyjaf-
jallajkull, understanding the role of volcanic ash in the atmo-
sphere and its impact on air trafc has become imperative. Flight
 D.B. Dingwell et al. / Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 4546 (2012) 24
Fig. 1. Volcanic eruptions in the Earth system. The eruption of volcanoes is a
primary exchange mechanism from the lithosphere to the atmosphere, hydrosphere
and biosphere. One of the most efcient elements of this interaction on scales from
local to global is volcanic ash. The role of volcanic ash as an agent of change in the
Earth system has not received sufcient attention in the past. This is changing.
paths may be strongly inuenced by atmospheric perturbation and
by the undesirable presence of ash. Ash dispersal models are fun-
damental to the assessment of risks and impacts. Statistics of the
recurrence of explosive activity indicate that approximately 20 ac-
tive volcanoes are erupting ash clouds at any given point in time
(Simkin and Siebert, 20022010). Meteorological simulations of
ash cloud dispersal have vastly improved with the advance of com-
putational technologies and, to a lesser extent, the increase in
physical constraints on meteorological inuences on ash aggrega-
tion, suspension and sedimentation. Nevertheless, real-time mon-
itoring of the physical properties is to date incapable of yielding
a complete description of the phenomenon (Mastin et al., 2009;
Webley and Mastin, 2009).
Gradually, mechanistic studies are adding valuable constraints
to the problem. For example, single-particle freezing experiments
have demonstrated that ash particles induce hydrometeor forma-
tion (Durant et al., 2008), thereby promoting cloud base instability
that leads to rapid sedimentation of ne ash (Durant and Rose,
2009). Yet, important questions remain as to the residence time
of ash in the atmosphere, the interaction with water molecules
and the rate of deposition (Taddeucci et al., 2011). These factors af-
fect the concentration of ash in the atmosphere and thus the distri-
bution of potential impacts on land and in the sky.
The ight of an aircraft through a volcanic cloud is believed to
have multiple detrimental consequences. The extent of damage suf-
fered by an encounter depends in part on the operating temperature
of the turbines, as well as the concentration and type of ash ingested
(Dunn et al., 1996). Essentially, as long as the ash particles remain so-
lid, parts of the fuselage and/or the turbines may be abraded. If the
glass shards exceed their glass transition temperature, however, or
if ne grains of rock and crystals reach their melting temperatures,
melt droplets may adhere to the surfaces of turbines (c.f., fouling
and slagging), consequently causing malfunction of the engine.
Although the subject has been articulated since the early 1990s,
with the organisation of the rst International Conference on Volca-
nic Ash and Aviation Safety, remarkably little is known in detail
about how ash (with respect to chemical composition, concentra-
tion and particle size) impacts on aircraft engine functions.
Apart from the physical inuences of volcanic ash, the chemical
interaction of ash particles with gas molecules and subsequently,
with its depositional environment bears on the complexity of
how volcanoes interact with the other subsystems of the Earth sys-
tem (de Moor et al., 2005). It is widely debated as to whether ash
and aerosols are catalysts for processes that have global climatic
consequences (Robock, 2000; Delmelle et al., 2005). Yet, there is
a crucial knowledge gap concerning volcanic gas and ash interac-
tions in eruption plumes (Graf et al., 1999). Evidence suggests that
3
these reactions are responsible for the removal of up to 40% of the
sulphur and 30% of the chlorine emissions (e.g., Rose, 1977; de
Moor et al., 2005). Not only does gas/ash interaction inuence
the quantities of volcanic sulphur, halides and halogens present
in the atmosphere during an eruption; it also affects the surface
properties of the ash. This may dictate the propensity of ash to
nucleate ice formation (Havlicek et al., 1993), as well as to react
with trace atmospheric gases (Usher et al., 2003). Conversely, in-
plume scavenging reactions of volcanic gases provide a pathway
for returning various chemical elements to the Earths surface via
deposition of ash (Rose, 1977).
Our current understanding of gas/ash interaction in eruption
plumes is essentially derived from the chemical composition of
leachates obtained by extracting the soluble salts found on the sur-
face of freshly-erupted ash (e.g., Witham et al., 2005). This ap-
proach has been used for more than 30 years and has led to
speculations that temperature, gas-to-ash ratio and plume resi-
dence time are key parameters in explaining the large variability
observed in ash leachate compositions (Rose, 1977).
Volcanoes, microbes and water are amongst the essential ingre-
dients for planetary renewal processes that sustain Earths near
surface environment as a habitable planet. Trace fossils of micro-
bial corrosion features in volcanic glass suggests that glass is effec-
tively a bioreactor, playing a key role in unlocking nutrients and
energy to sustain microbial life. Such fossils were found in the Pil-
bara and the Barberton Mountain greenstone belts implying that
these processes are as old as any physically preserved relicts of life
on Earth (Furnes et al., 2004). Building on our understanding of
glass bioalteration (Staudigel et al., 2008; Herrera et al., 2009) we
know now that biologically mediated glass alteration dominates
versus abiotic alteration and it is envisaged that characteristic dis-
solution features are caused by microbial cell extensions.
Whereas parts of the biosphere may thrive from explosive erup-
tions [both on a short-term (e.g., algae bloom) and long-term (e.g.,
fertile soils) scale], parts of it, especially humans and animals, may
even be existentially threatened. Acute health responses to ash falls
include increases in symptoms in patients with asthma and chronic
lung conditions and, in prolonged eruptions, a risk of chronic (bro-
tic) lung disease developing in vulnerable groups such as children or
outdoor workers (Horwell and Baxter, 2006). Time series epidemio-
logical studies have conrmed that raised daily concentrations of
particles in urban air (PM10 and PM2.5) are associated with increases
in cardio-respiratory mortality and hospital admissions, and the
toxicology of micro- and nano-particles has become a major line of
medical research (World Health Organization, 2006).
4. Summary
Crises have always spurred the need for action. Integrative efforts
are essential to systematically describe, model and simulate the
above-mentioned interactions of ash within the Earth systems. It
is within the physical (e.g., size, density, surface area, abrasion),
chemical (e.g., reactivity), mechanical (e.g., glass transition), and
thermodynamic (e.g., melting temperature) properties of volcanic
ash that the answers lie to the global threat they pose. In closing
we emphasise that stratigraphic records around the world show that
volcanic systems have been strongly active for periods of time more
extensive than humans have experienced in the past decades and
centuries. It is vital that we learn to live with the effects of volcanic
ash, today, and to recognise it as a central player in the Earth system.
Acknowledgement
DBD acknowledges the support of a research professorship of
the Bundesexzellenzinitiative (LMUexcellent) and the Advanced
4 D.B. Dingwell et al. / Physics and Chemistry of the Earth 4546 (2012) 24
Researcher Grant EVOKES of the European Research Council. YL
was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft grants
LA2651/1-1 and LA2651/3-1. We thank Steve Self and Bruce
Houghton for their careful reviews of this manuscript.
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