The Current State of Research on Volcanic Lakes in the USA

Volcanic lakes can be associated with a range of hazards, including phreatomagmatic eruptions, debris flows, flank collapse, tsunami and toxic gas release (Mastin and Witter, JVGR, V. 97, p.195-214, 2000; Manville, in Volcanic Lakes: Springer, p. 21-71, 2015). Several volcanic systems in the USA host lakes known to receive heat and gas from underlying magma. These lakes range in area, depth, and chemical composition, and are found in Yellowstone National Park (Wyoming), Newberry volcano and Crater Lake (Oregon), Medicine Lake volcano, Clear Lake volcanic field, Mono Lake and the Salton Sea (California), Aniakchak, Katmai, Kaguyak and Chiginagak and other volcanoes (Alaska) and between October 2019 and December 2020, at Kilauea Volcano (Hawaii). Most volcanic lakes in the USA are not monitored systematically, and temporal variations in lake level, temperature and chemistry are largely undocumented in a rigorous program. Information on Holocene lake-level fluctuations and magma-lake interaction have been inferred from sediment cores and from analysis of deposits that formed during explosive eruptions (for example, in Mono Lake, Newberry, Crater Lake, Clear Lake and Yellowstone Lake). In a few lakes, geophysical surveys (mainly seismic reflection and magnetics) have provided additional information on the location of hydrothermal vents and on the distribution of eruption deposits. Heat flow surveys and deployment of lake bottom seismometers were conducted in Yellowstone Lake, but not in other volcanic lakes. Baseline data that would allow us to better assess hazards include for example, bathymetric and heat flow mapping, characterization of hydrothermal vents and of the three-dimensional distribution of temperature, salinity and dissolved species of magmatic origin in lake waters. Continuous time series measurements of near-vent temperature and chemical compositions might help with the detection of transient events.