Identification of variable convective regimes at Erta Ale Lava Lake

During February 17–19, 2002, we collected a combined thermal and seismic data set for persistent lava lake activity at Erta Ale volcano, Ethiopia. These data indicate that the lake cycled between periods characterized by low (0.01–0.08 m s−1) and high (0.1–0.4 m s−1) surface velocities, typically lasting tens to hundreds of minutes. These periods of high and low velocity motion define periods of vigorous and sluggish convection, respectively. Spectral analysis revealed that vigorous convection periods were characterized by high frequencies and energies in the thermal data and an increased presence of high-frequency energy in the seismic data. The data show that vigorous periods were characterized by formation of hot, short-lived, plastic crusts, and sluggish periods by cooler, longer lived, brittle crusts. Here, the higher transit velocity across the lake surface from upwelling zones of crust formation to downwelling zones of crust destruction during the vigorous periods decreases the crust lifetime. This in turn decreases the total cooling and thickening experienced by a plate of crust moving across the lake surface. Two scenarios can be envisaged to explain such convection cycles. The first relates variable convection rates to changes in the volume flux and rheology of magma entering the lake. In the second, cyclic convection is set up by the generation of convective instabilities within the lake. In this case, cooling of a surface layer generates a slow moving, viscous, increasingly dense convection layer at the lake surface which is consumed and replaced during overturn.