Program uses Singapore Time and is 8 hours ahead of GMT

School Talk/Live Q&A Thu-04 Aug 18:00 – 19:00

What Do We Know and Don’t Know About Volcanic Hazard?
Insights From 2022 Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai Volcano Eruption

Volcanic eruptions possess one of the greatest threats to human society. The 79 BC eruption of Mount Vesuvius (Italy) buried the ancient Roman city of Pompeii and Pompeii civilization under a thick carpet of volcanic ash. The 1991 Pinatubo (Philippine) eruption resulted in a cooling of the troposphere of the northern hemisphere by 0.2 to 0.7°C and strong volcanic winters in the following years. Most recently, the 2022 Hunga Tonga – Hunga Ha’apai Volcano Eruption produced extremely strong atmospheric excitations that stimulated the tsunami waves throughout the entire Pacific Ocean. The 2022 event is one of the most well-recorded eruptions observed with various modern techniques. In this talk, I will present a wide range of observations of this eruption, along with other eruptions, to show what we know and don’t know about the volcanic hazard, and how to better prepare for the future global impact eruptions

Shengji Wei is an assistant professor in the Earth Observatory of Singapore and the Asian School of Environment in Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. He graduated in Geophysics (B.S., 2004) and received a Ph.D. in Geophysics (2009) from the University of Science and Technology of China, and spent his postdoc time at the CalTech SeismoLab. His research focuses on earthquake source studies, involving integrating multidisciplinary approaches for rupture imaging and developing high-frequency waveform inversion and modeling techniques. Shengji works closely with collaborators in rock mechanics, earthquake dynamic simulation, geodesy, and geology to decipher fundamental earthquake physics questions. He is also interested in Southeast Asia seismology, volcano seismology, and crustal to upper mantle structure imaging to better understand tectonic and geodynamic processes. (https://www.earthobservatory.sg/research/tectonics/observational-seismology)