Hajimirza, SahandGonnermann, Helge M.Gardner, James E.2021-02-242021-02-242021Hajimirza, Sahand, Gonnermann, Helge M. and Gardner, James E.. "Reconciling bubble nucleation in explosive eruptions with geospeedometers." <i>Nature Communications,</i> 12, (2021) Springer Nature: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20541-1.https://hdl.handle.net/1911/110099Magma from Plinian volcanic eruptions contains an extraordinarily large numbers of bubbles. Nucleation of those bubbles occurs because pressure decreases as magma rises to the surface. As a consequence, dissolved magmatic volatiles, such as water, become supersaturated and cause bubbles to nucleate. At the same time, diffusion of volatiles into existing bubbles reduces supersaturation, resulting in a dynamical feedback between rates of nucleation due to magma decompression and volatile diffusion. Because nucleation rate increases with supersaturation, bubble number density (BND) provides a proxy record of decompression rate, and hence the intensity of eruption dynamics. Using numerical modeling of bubble nucleation, we reconcile a long-standing discrepancy in decompression rate estimated from BND and independent geospeedometers. We demonstrate that BND provides a record of the time-averaged decompression rate that is consistent with independent geospeedometers, if bubble nucleation is heterogeneous and facilitated by magnetite crystals.engThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder.Journal articles41467-020-20541-1https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-20541-1