Thermal anomaly at the Earth’s surface associated with a lava tube

Lava tubes are frequently encountered in volcanic areas. The formation of lava tubes has strong implications on the volcanic hazard during effusive eruptions. The thermal dissipation of lava flowing in a tube is reduced in respect to the lava flowing in an open channel so the lava may threaten areas that would not be reached by flows in open channels: for this reason it is important to detect the presence of lava tubes. In this work we propose a model to detect the presence and the characteristics of lava tubes by their thermal footprint at the surface. We model numerically the temperature distribution and the heat flow, both in the steady and the transient state, and we take into account the principal thermal effects due to the presence of an active lava tube, i.e. the conduction to the ground and the atmosphere, the convection and the radiation in the atmosphere. We assume that lava fluid is at high temperature, in motion inside a sloping tube under the gravity force. The thermal profile across the tube direction, in particular the width of the temperature curve, allows to evaluate the depth of the tube. The values of maximum temperature and of tube depth allow to estimate the area of the tube section. The shape of the temperature curve and its asymmetry can give information about the geometry of the tube. If we observe volcanic areas at different times by thermal cameras, we can detect anomalies and evaluate their causes during an eruption; in particular, we can evaluate whether they are due to active lava flows or not and what is their state. For lava tubes, we can connect thermal anomalies with lava tube position, characteristics and state.