Dr. Anthony Lamur
Scientist
Office hours:
10:00 - 16:00
I was born and raised in France where I did most of my undergraduate studies in geology (BSc at Clermont Auvergne University, France) and geophysics of volcanoes (1st year MSc at Michigan Techonological University, USA) and chemistry of silicate melts (2nd year MSc, Clermont Auvergne University, France). In 2014, I moved to Liverpool, UK to pursue my PhD looking at the development, longevity and impacts of fractures in geothermal and volcanic settings, before 2 postdocs and a 2-year teaching position in Geophysics. In 2022, I moved to Munich, Germany where I teach (undergraduate and masters levels) and pursue my current research interests.
Research Interests
I am an experimental volcanologist trying to understand mechanisms underpinning effusive-explosive transitions at volcanoes. My research primarily focusses on the interaction between fluids and rocks or melts. In practice, I characterise rocks and melts physical properties (porosity, permeability, viscosity, strength, etc.) under confined/unconfined conditions, with and without applied deformation.
Columnar joints in a rhyolite at Long Valley caldera, USA | © Anthony Lamur
Columnar jointing in silicic lavas
Columnar joints readily form as lava/magma bodies cool and contract, resulting in build-up of stress and strain at a rate commensurate with the thermodynamic properties of the material. This eventually results in the development of polygonal sets of fractures that progress towards the centre of the lava/magma body. These fractures allow for the rapid transfer of “cold” fluids in the lava/magma body, hastening the cooling process. Understanding how and when such fractures form can thus help us better understand, for example, the deformation of volcanic edifices after new material was emplaced. It can also potentially lead us to characterise the heat exchange between fluids and cooling lava/magma in fractures, thus potentially enabling us to tap into magmas for more efficient geothermal energy.
Lamur, A., Lavallée, Y., Iddon, F. E., Hornby, A. J., Kendrick, J. E., Von Aulock, F. W., & Wadsworth, F. B. (2018). Disclosing the temperature of columnar jointing in lavas.Nature communications, 9(1), 1432.
The permeability of transient porous networks
Magmas during their transport to/towards the surface exhibit transient porous network due to the presence of vesicles that can nucleate, grow and coalesce under short timescales. Ultimately, how easily the volatiles contained within those vesicles can escape the magma dictate how explosive the volcanic system is. To date, our understanding of how volatiles are transferred in volcanic conduits is based on static permeability measurements on, mostly cold, lava samples in which the porous network does not evolve on the timescale of the measurement. This project aims at understanding how dynamic permeability becomes once the porous network is changing rapidly under shallow magmatic conditions (low pressure; high temperature) to better understand the mechanics of magmas in shallow volcanic environments.