Walter Báez

Polycyclic scoria cones of the Antofagasta de la Sierra basin, Southern Puna plateau, Argentina

Abstract Despite a number of published papers focusing on the geodynamic implications of the recent Southern Puna mafic magmatism, there have been fewer studies of the volcanology and stratigraphy of this outstanding volcanism. This paper presents a detailed map of two well-preserved Quaternary scoria cones showing their complex stratigraphy. Complementary morphometric, morpho-structural, petrographic and geochemical data were used to reconstruct the evolution of both volcanoes. The occurrence of more than one eruption at each volcano was inferred by the recognition of temporal hiatuses using morpho-stratigraphic criteria. The polycyclic nature of both scoria cones could be related to a combination of a high input magma in response to lithospheric delamination, a favourable regional stress field and the interaction of rising magma with pre-existing faults. The youngest eruptions in both volcanoes were complex, with shifts in the eruptive style from violent strombolian to hawaiian/strombolian phases, and probably lasted for a few years. The explosive activity was accompanied by the emission of lava flows from lateral vents. Phreatomagmatic activity was triggered during the waning stages of the eruptions. The occurrence of more than one eruption in a single scoria cone and the changes in the eruptive style during long-lasting eruptions are important topics for volcanic hazard assessment in the Southern Puna.

Numerical simulations of windblown dust over complex terrain: the Fiambalá Basin episode in June 2015

On the 13 June 2015, the London Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre (VAAC) warned the Buenos Aires VAAC about a possible volcanic eruption from the Nevados Ojos del Salado volcano (6,879 m), located in the Andes mountain range on the border between Chile and Argentina. A volcanic ash cloud was detected by the SEVIRI instrument on board the Meteosat Second Generation (MSG) satellites from 14:00 UTC on 13 June. Further studies concluded that the phenomenon was caused by remobilization of ancient pyroclastic deposits (circa 4.5 Ka Cerro Blanco eruption) from the Bolsón de Fiambalá (Fiambalá 5 Basin) in northwestern Argentina. In this paper, we provide the first comprehensive description of the dust episode through observations and numerical simulations. We have investigated the spatio-temporal distribution of aerosols and the emission process over complex terrain to gain insight into the key role played by the orography and the condition that triggered the long-range transport episode. Numerical simulations of windblown dust were performed using the WRF-ARW/FALL3D modeling system with meteo10 rological fields downscaled to a spatial resolution of 2 km in order to resolve the complex orography of the area. Results indicated that favourable conditions to generate dust uplifting occurred in northern Fiambalá Basin, where orographic effects caused strong surface winds. According to short-range numerical simulations, dust particles were confined to near-ground layers around the emission areas. On the other hand, dust aerosols were injected up to 5-6 km high in central and southern regions of the Fiambalá Basin, where intense ascending airflows are driven by horizontal convergence. 15 Long-range transport numerical simulations were also performed to model dust cloud spreading over northern Argentina. Results of simulated vertical particle column mass were compared with the MSG-SEVIRI retrieval product. We tested two numerical schemes: with the default configuration of the FALL3D model, we found difficulties to simulate transport through orographic barriers, whereas an alternative configuration, using a numerical scheme to more accurately compute the horizontal advection in abrupt terrains, substantially improved the model performance. 20 1 Atmos. Chem. Phys. Discuss., doi:10.5194/acp-2016-851, 2016 Manuscript under review for journal Atmos. Chem. Phys. Published: 19 December 2016 c