![\"Taiyi](\"https:\/\/www.jsg.utexas.edu\/news\/files\/Taiyi-Wang-cropped.jpg\")
<\/a>Taiyi Wang<\/p>\nTaiyi Wang, a geophysicist who studies the mechanics of earthquakes and volcanos, joined the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences as an assistant professor on Aug. 1.<\/p>\n
Earthquake mechanics and volcanology are traditionally separate disciplines in the geosciences. Wang combines them in his study of the fractures under the Earth\u2019s surface and the fluids \u2014 such as magma or water \u2014 that flow through them.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the most fundamental way, whenever there\u2019s a large amount of fluid moving around in the crust, it creates stress, and stress can lead to small earthquakes. These small earthquakes are important for understanding what volcanos are doing,\u201d Wang said.<\/p>\n
Wang first got interested in studying volcanology when he was an undergraduate at Carleton College. He took a three-month field course in New Zealand where he saw active volcanos for the first time. The experience made him want to understand everything about how they work, and what subsurface processes lead to eruptions.<\/p>\n
Wang\u2019s expertise lays in coupling observations motivated by geology with the mathematics and mechanics needed for physics-based modeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cI like both perspectives to understand why things happen, and geophysics naturally combines them both,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
In graduate school at Stanford University, Wang wrote his dissertation on the dynamics of caldera collapse, and the role of earthquakes in modulating it. Caldera collapse sometimes happens when volcanoes erupt. Kilometers below the summit of a volcano is a magma reservoir \u2014 molten magma surrounded by crust. When the volcano erupts, this magma leaves the reservoir, which deflates like a balloon due to lack of pressure. This deflation can sometimes trigger caldera collapse, which is when kilometers of crust fall into the reservoir like a sagging cake. A famous example of this phenomenon is the 2018 eruption of the K\u012blauea Volcano in Hawaii. The collapse caused thousands of earthquakes, 62 of which were magnitude 5 and greater.<\/p>\n