| Volcanoes throughout the solar system create a wide diversity of eruptive products as
well as hazards that can be both potentially useful and deadly. In this dissertation, I
investigate three problems within the two endmembers of volcanism: effusive and
explosive eruptions. On the explosive side, I observe how wind affects the stability of
eruption plumes, leading to the potential generation of hazardous pyroclastic density
currents and changes in the amount of ash being loaded into the atmosphere. I also
explore how explosive volcanism may play a role in the hydration content of martian
regolith, amongst other processes. On the effusive side, I ground truth remote detections
of a lava tube in the thermal infrared spectrum to see whether it is possible to detect lava
tubes from orbit on the Earth and Moon using thermal inertia techniques. For the explosive
volcanism problems, I utilize complex numerical simulations to model the dynamic
processes of the eruption plume, while for the effusive volcanism problem, I utilize
unmanned aerial systems and simple 1D heat flow models. From these analyses, I
reached the following major conclusions: 1. Low altitude winds close to the vent
destabilize explosive eruption plumes while high altitude winds have little effect; 2.
Explosive volcanism likely contributed to the hydration state of the martian regolith; and
3. Thermal inertia cannot be used to detect lava tubes from orbit due to a variety of
confounding factors, including limited heat flow through basalt or lunar regolith.
Key Words: Volcanoes, Wind, Modeling, Mars, Moon, Regolith, Lava tubes, Hydration |