Wednesdays from 4:30 pm – 5:30 pm
The aim of this series is to hear about the innovative and exciting research that is taking place within our college, thus both faculty and students are encouraged to give a colloquium presentation. Talks should be either 40 - 50 minutes in length for a single presenter colloquium or 20 - 25 minutes in length for a joint colloquium event. If you would like to sign-up to give a CNHS Colloquium Talk, email Efren Ruiz.
Date: 21 January 2026
Where: STB 118
Speaker: Dr. Helen Janiszewski, UH Mānoa Department of Earth Sciences
Title: Imaging Trans-Crustal Magmatic Systems with Receiver Functions: A Path Towards Linking Tectonic and Eruptive Processes
Abstract: Understanding the connection between the transport of magma from the mantle to shallow emplacement and eruption processes requires knowledge of magma storage depths throughout the crust. Despite this, constraints from the mid-crust to upper mantle are typically limited to volcanoes that fortuitously have properties that illuminate the deep system (e.g., deep volcanic seismicity, preserved petrologic evidence of deep crustal storage, etc.), or those where high-resolution geophysical experiments have taken place. Here, I demonstrate the utility of the seismic receiver function technique for providing new insights related to magma storage in the crust using two case studies. The first focuses on providing systematic depth estimates of crustal magma storage at all sufficiently monitored (>3 broadband seismometers) volcanoes in the Aleutian arc. A significant barrier for understanding arc magmatism is the need to constrain whole- crustal magmatic architecture at a significant number of arc volcanoes such that we can sufficiently sample different subduction parameters. Here, we leverage receiver functions to provide first-order constraints at arc volcanoes with minimal requirements for seismic station distribution. The second case study focuses on a seismic nodal deployment on the Southwest Rift Zone of Kīlauea. Here, recent increases in deep seismicity, called the Pāhala seismic swarm, have been interpreted as an increase in mantle magma flux, with potential lateral transport pathways towards the central edifices of either Kīlauea or Mauna Loa. We aim to use receiver functions in conjunction with local seismic tomography to provide high resolution images extending to swarm depths to provide independent constraints on mantle magmatic structure.