Recent Research on lava tube collapse with NASA

As part of a larger collaborative NASA led project. PIs Kelley, Licciardi and Whelley collected samples in and around lava tubes from Lava Beds National Monument in N. California. The goal of this project is to test the hypothesis that lava tubes predominantly collapse as a function of cooling driven fracture propagation early in a lava flow’s life time. The findings of this work will inform about the long term stability of lava tubes on Earth, as well as on other planets, important information to be gained before these features can be used to house human or robotic space exploration teams.