Suggested Searches

EO-1 observations of volcanic eruption in Iceland
NASA's Terra spacecraft shows Mount St. Helens, Washington, just after its eruption on May 18, 1980, 40 years ago.
This looping video shows an umbrella cloud

Earth Surface and Interior Missions & Projects at Ames

Back to Earth Surface and Interior Landing Page about Earth Surface and Interior Missions & Projects at Ames

active projects

2

subject matter experts

3

NASA Ames poc

Florian Schwandner

CRATER

CRATER seeks to increase our understanding of the interaction between persistent gas emission and tropical ecosystems, using the S2 Black Swift uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) to measure trace gas concentrations around Rincón de la Vieja Volcano, Costa Rica.

These low-altitude airborne observations, when combined with existing ground-based datasets available from collaborators on site, will provide a more complete picture of how persistent volcanic emissions influence surrounding ecosystems.

Click here to learn more about CRATER about CRATER
Two men work on a small gray fixed-wing aircraft mounted on a sliver launcher shaped like a tripod, pointing to the right of the frame. They stand in a red and green grassy field, with a blueish mountain and cloudy skies with the sun breaking through just above the horizon in the distance.
Black Swift CEO Jack Elston and CRATER pilot William Wade work on the S2 uncrewed aircraft system (UAS) before a flight in Rincon de la Vieja, during NASA’s CRATER (Costa Rica Airborne research on foresT Ecosystem Response to volcanic emissions) project.
NASA/Milan Loiacono

RUMMBLE

A grey mountain rises in the middle of the photo into a blue sky, with bits of white clouds swirling around the peak. In the foreground, the same gray rock makes a flat plane of sand.
Clouds swirl over the summit of the Turrialba Volcano in Costa Rica, where researcher Kate Nelson took measurements.
Michigan Tech/Kate Nelson

The earliest precursor to a volcanic eruption is a change in total degassing flux and the composition of the gases emitted. Most of the world’s volcanoes remain unmonitored, leaving an opportunity for space-based observations.

One of the major challenges to observing volcanic gas fluxes from space is the presence of atmospheric aerosol particles. Depending on their composition, quantity and position in the atmospheric column, they may introduce biases, either increasing or decreasing the observed trace-gas quantity through light scattering and absorption.

RUMMBLE is an interdisciplinary team bringing together atmospheric remote sensing and modeling, geophysical modeling, and field observations of volcanoes, focusing on eruptive and pre-eruptive volcanic activity in Alaska, Hawaii, Costa Rica and the continental U.S., to begin to address these challenges.