Fantastic Photo of a Volcanic Lightning Storm

By Anita in Pictures, Science & Tech on May 16, 2008 at 12:34 am

Photo: Carlos Gutierrez/UPI/Landov

Not only is Chile’s long dormant Chaitén volcano now erupting, but it is creating some amazing volcanic lightning storms. All I can think of when I see the picture is “wow”, so here’s a better description of the phenomenon from the article:

“The mingling of lightning and ash seen above may be a ‘dirty thunderstorm.’

The little-understood storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges—just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms. (More: Volcanic Lightning Sparked by ‘Dirty Thunderstorms,’ Study Finds” [February, 2, 2007].)”

Read the full story and see other photos at National Geographic.

Neat stuff from the NeatoShop:

Ali S.
May 16th, 2008 at 1:25 am
Dude, that is scary looking! I could imagine that to be in a apocalyptic scene in a movie!
LisaL
May 16th, 2008 at 2:07 am
Wow… that looks amazing.
Nemo
May 16th, 2008 at 2:45 am
sorry, i farted
Dave
May 16th, 2008 at 6:28 am
Very cool.

Anybody know how much co2 that puppy is dumping into the atmosphere? Yet nobody’s blaming it for global warming.
Thomas
May 16th, 2008 at 10:34 am
The whole point of global warming is that its from man made sources. Volcanoes have been doing their thing for millions of years, with relatively no change in CO2 levels. PEOPLE on the other hand, have exponentially increased the CO2 levels in just a couple of generations.

Besides, WTF are you going to do to stop a volcano? That shit’s hot.
CheeseDuck
May 16th, 2008 at 2:22 pm
Eh.. Volcanoes produce global cooling.. They pump a shit load of volcanic ash into the atmoshpere, causing the Earth to reflect more light.
kid_icarus
May 16th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
before i saw the headline i thought it was a photograph from some alien planet or something sci-fi-ish like that…….that is AWESOME!
Dave
May 16th, 2008 at 4:10 pm
Thomas: Actually, the whole point of global warming — or rather, global climate change because the climate isn’t warming as fast as Algore thought it was — is the co2 levels aren’t what’s causing the changes that have been noted, and that the climate has been its thing for just as long with no human intervention. We have as much ability to alter global climate trends as we have of stopping a volcano.

http://www.worldclimatereport.com
McFred
May 17th, 2008 at 8:45 am
More pics at http://nanok.com/vul/
marley howards
Jun 4th, 2008 at 2:59 am
It is deadly beautiful.

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