Vikrahraun-the 1961 basaltic lava flow eruption at Askja, Iceland: morphology, geochemistry, and planetary analogs

We examine the morphology and chemistry of the Vikrahraun basaltic eruption emplaced at Askja Volcano, Iceland, from Oct. 26-Dec. 17, 1961. The eruption had three eruptive events, initiating with a'a and followed by alternating a'a and pahoehoe lava flow emplacement. We determine that while the eruption is chemically homogenous (Fe/Mg = 1.9-2.2, 47-52 wt.% SiO2), it demonstrates transitions from high to low viscosity lava flow morphologies. A'a flows have a total crystallinity (phenocryst and microlite abundance by area) ranging from 85-100%, which increases by 1% per km from the vents, while pahoehoe flows range from 55-86% and increase at a higher rate of 5% per km. Vesicularity systematically decreases with distance from the vent by 3% per km. Pahoehoe and vent samples have calculated temperatures 50 °C higher than a'a samples, which we interpret to be due to the difference between tube fed pahoehoe and open channel a'a lavas. The homogenous nature of the Vikrahraun lava makes it an excellent testbed to study the effects of observational scale and satellite resolution on the interpretation of surficial textures. Festoons, which are downslope pointed convex ridges from 1 to 5 m high and ~ 10 m long, are observed in event 2 a'a lavas in satellite imagery and topographic profiles. Features of this scale have previously only been documented in terrestrial rhyolitic lavas, leading planetary researchers to infer that festooned lava flows on Venus and Mars may be silicic. The diverse morphologies and homogenous composition make Vikrahraun an important planetary analog, where morphological complexity is over-attributed to chemical variation and suggests the need to re-evaluation planetary lava flow interpretations.

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The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40623-022-01711-5.

Can resonances occur in the photodissociation continuum of a diatomic molecule? The role of potential discontinuities

Continuum resonances are standard fare in the instructional literature for quantum mechanics, where they arise from the continuity conditions imposed on one-dimensional wavefunctions for piecewise-constant potential energy functions. Such resonance structure weakens progressively as the discontinuity in the potential is smoothed, showing that the structure is specifically attributable to the discontinuity. Since diatomic molecular potential energy curves seldom vary rapidly on the distance scale of the period of the wavefunction, such continuum resonances are not expected in absorption continua. A historically interesting prediction of such structure in the Schumann–Runge continuum (B ← X) of O2 is attributed to the inadvertent incorporation of discontinuity in the B-state potential curve employed in the computations.Key words: quantum mechanics, continuum resonance, diatomic absorption, photodissociation continuum, numerical methods.