World’s Most Impressive Explosions of Lava

By Queuebot in Science & Tech on Mar 21, 2009 at 10:47 pm

Lava explodes and flows in different forms. How many of these are you familiar with?

The explosive nature of these fascinating geological mountains provide us with a time line of earth’s past, they create chains of living and breathing islands, and they cause deathly destruction to everything they touch.

The violence of a volcanic eruption is based upon many factors including the viscosity of the given magma. (the more viscous, the more violent) Viscosity is a measure of a materials resistance to flow, and the thicker it is, the slower is will flow. This works the same way in our bodies when we are dehydrated.

Link

From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.

Tags: eruptions, geology, science, volcano

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PancakeMan
Mar 21st, 2009 at 11:15 pm
That was interesting, but the post title does not really describe the actual article too well.

As for the link, I was hoping they would show Strombolian eruptions, or at least what they deposit all over the countryside. Giant blobs of lava shoot into the air, fly a few hundred feet, and cool just enough too be solid when they strike something and ooze lava onto it.
Oh, and the name I’ve seen volcanologists use is “lava bombs”, which makes it awesome.
lannaxe96
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 12:35 am
You are right about Lava Bombs. Geologists you mean? There are several kinds that can actually be formed when the fragments are ejected.
Lauren
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 12:37 am
Pancakeman

Strombolian eruptions are very low level eruptions. Not to impressive really, at least I don’t think they really are.
whitcwa
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 10:44 am
In defining viscosity, they wrote”This works the same way in our bodies when we are dehydrated.” While viscosity will change in a dehydrated person it is not the mechanism which causes the symptoms of dehydration.
Johnny Cat
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 11:16 am
Pillow lava is cool to watch, but I would rather scuba dive in more serene environs.
Evilbeagle
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 12:55 pm
Pretty cool. Volcanos have always held a special fascination for me.
PancakeMan
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 3:44 pm
@Lauren:
The eruptions don’t produce much lava, but they do shoot the above-mentioned lava bombs, which is why they are dangerous. They can routinely be this size:
http://www.exo.net/~pauld/antarctica/erebusjessiebomb.jpeg

That one came from Mt Erebus, in Antarctica. The mountain is very special in the way that it features one of the very few lava lakes. That is to say, it’s crater has a very large lake of lava. It’s really cool, too.
monia
Mar 22nd, 2009 at 7:42 pm
I enjoyed this a lot Very “neat”. hehe

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