The project from which the data derived aimed to establish the first systematic study of Cu isotope fractionation during the prehistoric smelting and refining process. For this reason, an experimental approach was used to smelt sulfide copper ore according to reconstructed prehistoric smelting models. The ore was collected by E. Hanning as part of her PhD thesis work from a Bronze Age mining site, the Mitterberg region, Austria (Hanning and Pils 2011) and was made available for the experiments.All starting materials for the experiments such as the natural ore, roasted ore, construction clay, flux, dung (used for the roasting), wood and charcoal (fuel) were natural materials. All firing conditions including the amount of fuel or charging material and the temperatures in the furnaces were recorded, and the experimental procedures were documented in the very detail. In total, 30 experiments were carried out in 4 experimental series. The smelting products, both intermediate products and final products were sampled during or after the respective experiment. Slag, matte and copper metal were the major smelting products. All other materials used in and produced by the experiments were sampled, too. Materials used and produced in the two most promising experimental series with regard to potential Cu isotope fractionation were analyzed. Based on the analytical results, the potential of Cu isotopes as a tool in archaeometallurgical research was systematically evaluated and consequences for the copper isotope application as a provenance tool in archaeometry were identified.The data include the documentation of the experiments, laboratory procedures and analytical methods. An experimental outline was previously published in Rose et al. (2019). Analytical methods applied were ICP-MS (elemental analysis, 80 samples), MC-ICP-MS (copper isotopes, 98 samples), and XRD (phase analysis, 25 samples). The experiments were carried out at the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Labor für Experimentelle Archäologie, Mayen, Germany. Laboratories used for the analytical part of the project were the research laboratories at the Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum and FIERCE (Frankfurt Isotope and Element Research Center), Goethe-University Frankfurt, both Germany. Data were processed and plots created with R (R Core Team 2019) in RStudio®. Data are provided as data tables or text files, the R scripts used to create the time-temperature plots of the smelting experiments are also included.The full description of the data and methods is provided in the data description file.
Volcanic projectiles are centimeter- to meter-sized clasts – both solid-to-molten rock fragments or lithic eroded from conduits – ejected during explosive volcanic eruptions that follow ballistic trajectories. Despite being ranked as less dangerous than large-scale processes such as pyroclastic density currents (hot avalanches of gas and pyroclasts), volcanic projectiles still represent a constant threat to life and properties in the vicinity of volcanic vents, and frequently cause fatal accidents on volcanoes. Mapping of their size, shape, and location in volcanic deposits can be combined to model possible trajectories of projectiles from the vent to their final position, and to estimate crucial source parameters of the driving eruption, such as ejection velocity and pressure differential at the vent. Moreover, size and spatial distributions of volcanic projectiles from past eruptions, coupled with ballistic modelling of their trajectory, are crucial to forecast their possible impact in future eruptions. The reliability of such models strongly depends on i) the appropriate physical functions and input parameters and ii) observational validations. In this study, we aimed to unravel intra-conduit processes that strongly control the dynamic of volcanic projectiles by combining numerical modelling and novel experimentally-determined source parameter. In particular, the multiphase ASHEE model (Cerminara 2016; Cerminara et al. 2016) suited for testing post-fragmentation conduit dynamics based on a robust shock tube experimental dataset. By exploding mixtures of pumice and dense lithic particles within a specially designed transparent autoclave, and by using a raft of pressure sensors, ultra-high-speed cameras and pre-sieved natural particles, we observed and quantified: i) kinematic data of the particles and of the gas front along the shock tube and outside, ii) pressure decay at 1GHz resolution. By feeding the ASHEE model with these datasets, and using initial and boundary conditions similar to that of the experiment, we defined domains composed by a pressurized shock tube and the outside chamber at ambient conditions, and tested particles particle motion according to a Lagrangian approach, as well as gas flow with a Eulerian approach (a 3D finite-volume numerical solver, compressible). The comparison between data and model yields estimate of the particle kinematic inside the tube, the pressure evolution at the top and the bottom of the tube, and the eruption source parameters at the tube exit.