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Analyzing Kilauea Lava Flow Velocities from Drone Flights

Description:

This project aims to derive and analyze the velocity of a lava flow site at Fissure 8 from the 2018 Lower East Rift Zone of Kilauea in Hawaii, from drone imagery collected by the USGS. This research is part of a larger project to understand and model multi-phase (lava, bubbles, and crystals) lava flows, and ultimatley better predict lava flow emplacement. I have derived velocity vector fields using particle image velocimetry (PIV), and analyze these data in xarray.

 

Scientific Questions:

  • How can I accuratley extract lava flow surface velocity from drone footage?

  • How does lava flow velocity at Site 6 change throughout a day?

  • Understanding the flow geometry, and it's affect on velocity...

    • influence of flow width, and depth on the apparent velocity?

Githubhttps://github.com/jbaur1/rces-final-project 

-You can run the code yourself through the binder in Github, or just check out the project in greater depth!

Drone Clip of Lava Flow: 

Thank you to the USGS who collected this footage during the 2018 Kilauea eruption!

Stills from each Flight:

Site_6_F07_Still_001.jpg
Site_6_F08_Still_001.jpg

Flight 7

Flight 8

Site_6_F09_Still_001.jpg

Flight 9

Site_6_F10_Still_001.jpg

Flight 10

Velocity GIFs:

F07_2.gif
F08_2.gif
F09_2.gif
F10_2.gif
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