Eruption predictor

St Andrews University scientists have been awarded a three year grant for almost £400,000 from the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) to create a life-saving device to help predict when volcanos wil erupt.

The unmanned monitoring instrument, to be trialled at Montserrat in the West Indies, will be developed by the Millimetre Wave and High-Field ESR Group in the School of Physics and Astronomy.

The new volcano radar project builds on the success of the group's previous NERC funded project which developed a unique portable volcano mapping instrument 'AVTIS' (All-weather Volcano Topography Imaging Sensor).  AVTIS uses millimetre waves to see through the smoke, gas and cloud that frequently cover volcanoes for months at a time to measure the size, shape and temperature of a growing volcanic lava dome.

The Scots team will continue to work with a team of volcanologists from Reading and Lancaster Universities and the Montserrat Volcano Observatory (MVO) on the new AVTIS project, with the aim of helping MVO provide round the clock coverage of volcanic activity.