Laura Spina#

AFFILIATION: Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Section for Mineralogy, Petrology and Geochemistry, Ludwig Maximilians Universität München
FIELD OF SCHOLARSHIP: Earth and Cosmic Science

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE:

Laura Spina (1986) received her Bachelor Degree in Geological Science, with distinction (110/110 con lode), in 2008 at the University of Catania, with a study based on paleomagnetic dating of Mt. Etna historical lava, performed in collaboration with the Institut de physique du globe de Paris. In the following two years she did an internship at Istituto Nazionale di Geofisica e Vulcanogia (INGV), studying volcanic infrasound and seismic-noise signals. In October 2010, she received her Master Degree in Geophysical Science, with distinction (110/110 con lode), at the University of Catania. In December 2010, she started her PhD and focused her studies on the dynamics of shallow conduit at basaltic active volcanoes (Mt. Etna, Italy; Mt. Yasur, Vanuatu), inferred through the analysis of acoustic and seismic signals, in collaboration with INGV. In February 2014, she received her PhD in Earth Science at University of Catania. From October 2012 to March 2015, she was enrolled in a Marie Curie Initial Training Network (NEMOH project) at Ludwig Maximilians University (LMU), Munich, where she performed shock-tube decompression experiments on analogue materials. She is actually a post-Doc researcher at LMU, where she is studying the effect of physical properties and decompression rate on the degassing response of analogue fluids.

DETAILS OF RESEARCH:

During my previous studies, I focused on infrasound and seismic signals generated by active basaltic volcanoes, such as Mt. Etna and Mt. Yasur. Indeed, the study of infrasound and volcano-seismicity, is well-known to provide important quantitative information on the shallow plumbing system, and on the dynamics of the multi-phase fluids within.

The willing to gain a better understanding of the shallow conduit dynamics has successively brought me to focus my research interests on the behaviour of analogue bubbly fluid under different decompression paths and/or physical properties (i.e. fluid viscosity, crystal content and/or shape). The applied research methodologies include the use of a properly developed shock tube in order to carry out decompression experiments on synthetic analogue material (silicon oil plus crystals). The decompression phase is realized at room temperature and high pressure conditions, and high speed videos are used to shed light on the degassing behaviour of decompressed analogue mixtures. Then, through scaling considerations, the quantitative analysis of the interdependence of each among the investigate parameters is referred to the natural case.

TWO KEY PUBLICATION REFERENCES:

Spina, L., Cannata, A., Privitera, E., Vergniolle, S., Ferlito, C., Gresta, S., Montalto, P., Sciotto, M., Insights into the Mt. Etna shallow plumbing system from the analysis of infrasound signals, August 2007-December 2009, Pure and Applied Geophysics, Vol. 172, Issue 2 , pp 473-490, doi: 10.1007/s00024-014-0884-x, 2015.

Spina, L., Taddeucci, J., Cannata, A., Gresta, S., Lodato, L., Privitera, E., Scarlato, P., Gaeta, M., Gaudin, D., Palladino, D.M., Explosive volcanic activity at Mt. Yasur: A characterization of the acoustic events (9–12th July 2011), J. Volcanol. Geotherm. Res., Vol. 302, pp 24-32, http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jvolgeores.2015.06.005, 2015.