Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff from How Stuff Works, Hi brain
Speaker 1: Stuff Lauren Vogelbaum here. When Alaska's Pavlof volcano erupted in
Speaker 1: March of it ejected a cloud of ash four hundred
Speaker 1: miles or six d forty KOs high. The stream of sharp,
Speaker 1: powdered rocks shut down air travel and major highways. Then
Speaker 1: twice in May and July, the U S Geological Survey
Speaker 1: raised the alert level for pavlov which seemed ready to
Speaker 1: do it again, but then they downgraded it in August.
Speaker 1: Volcanic eruptions are notoriously unpredictable. Hans Lechner, a doctorial candidate
Speaker 1: in geology and engineering sciences at Michigan Technological University, says
Speaker 1: volcanologists haven't figured out the timing yet. He wrote via email,
Speaker 1: a volcano may show all the signs of an impending eruption,
Speaker 1: increased seismicity, high gas flux, surface deformation, but then never
Speaker 1: actually erupt and over time returned back to baseline levels.
Speaker 1: Or he says, it can show none of the signs
Speaker 1: of an impending eruption and then erupt. There are those
Speaker 1: in the field who muse about going on the offensive.
Speaker 1: The volcanic preemptive strike if you will. The idea is
Speaker 1: humans somehow modify the eruption process, either by initiating an
Speaker 1: eruption under controlled conditions, or by downgrading the energy of
Speaker 1: an impending eruption to limit the resulting damage. The energy
Speaker 1: involved in a volcanic eruption defies the imagination. Italy's infamous
Speaker 1: Mount Etna spewed about three cubic feet that's ten cubic
Speaker 1: meters of lava per second during its four month eruption.
Speaker 1: In Lechno reports that in Mount Pinatubo's initial blast ejected
Speaker 1: about two point four cubic miles or ten cubic kilometers
Speaker 1: of material to an altitude of about twenty five miles
Speaker 1: or forty kilometers. He says that magma represents massive amounts
Speaker 1: of energy. It originates deep inside the Earth, where extreme
Speaker 1: temperatures and pressures can melt rock. Molten rock or magma
Speaker 1: is lighter than solid rock, so it rises, forming a
Speaker 1: magma chamber that moves upward through Earth's crust. As the
Speaker 1: volume of magma grows, the pressure in the chamber increases,
Speaker 1: forcing magma through the volcanoes vents tubes formed by prior
Speaker 1: eruptions sealed at the surface by a lid of rock.
Speaker 1: If the pressure gets high enough and Events suddenly opens
Speaker 1: to the atmosphere, the rapid depressurization causes gases to come
Speaker 1: out of solution, which causes the magma to explode. It
Speaker 1: spews through the open vents, along with pulverized rock, steam,
Speaker 1: and various gases. In the case of Mount Saint Helen's
Speaker 1: in eighty, Lecener says that extreme pressure had forced event
Speaker 1: lid to bulge outward, a classic sign of impending eruption,
Speaker 1: and landslide took it off. To modify that eruption, Lecner theorizes,
Speaker 1: I suppose humans could have triggered the landslide or removed
Speaker 1: the overburden lid through say excavation or even donating a
Speaker 1: nuclear device. Of course, nowton a volcano should not be
Speaker 1: anyone's first plan, and drilling into the magma chamber to
Speaker 1: release the pressures out too. Volcanologist Eric Clemetti, writing on
Speaker 1: Wired in likened that theory to trying to bleed to
Speaker 1: death with a needle prick. But we couldn't avert an
Speaker 1: erupt and by slowly depressurizing the chamber either Lechner wrote,
Speaker 1: we have to get past the misconception that a magma
Speaker 1: chamber is like a fluid filled balloon or soda bottle
Speaker 1: that we can gently insert a straw and suck out
Speaker 1: the lava and gas. We're talking about pressures and volumes
Speaker 1: of material that are beyond the capacity of man made equipment.
Speaker 1: He says, would have to drill down several kilometers with
Speaker 1: massive pipes hundreds of meters in diameter to handle the
Speaker 1: volcanic output that would rush from the chamber. The pipes
Speaker 1: would have to withstand temperatures above three thousand, six hundred
Speaker 1: degrees fahrenheit that's two thousand degrees celsius, and pressures quote
Speaker 1: beyond our capabilities to manage and even comprehend. And then
Speaker 1: he adds there would still be the gases held in
Speaker 1: solution by the pressure of the chamber that escape violently
Speaker 1: when the chamber depressurized. Generally speaking, it seems the main
Speaker 1: problem facing human modication of volcanic eruptions is that it's
Speaker 1: laughably impossible. Volcanoes are too big and volcanic eruptions are
Speaker 1: too powerful. Yet, says Janet Bab, geologist with the U
Speaker 1: s GS Hawaiian vulk cano observatory. Humanity is not completely
Speaker 1: without modification options, Bab rope via email. Humans cannot stop
Speaker 1: or control an eruption, but we have taken some actions
Speaker 1: to control products erupted from a volcano. Diverting lava flows.
Speaker 1: For instance, Bab points to Mount Etna and that three
Speaker 1: eruption mentioned earlier, which sent lava flowing into populated areas.
Speaker 1: With the lava flow threatening to overrun three towns, hundreds
Speaker 1: of workers desperately constructed a system of massive rebel barriers
Speaker 1: to redirect it, and it worked. They successfully diverted the lava.
Speaker 1: Attempts to guide lava flows by bombing them have generally failed.
Speaker 1: Cooling them has shown promise, though. In ninety three, when
Speaker 1: lava from a volcano on the Icelandic island of Haymi
Speaker 1: was flowing into towns, officials built barriers to stop its
Speaker 1: progress and dumped seawater on the lava to cool it down,
Speaker 1: slow the flow, and help it harden. The barriers held
Speaker 1: against the lower energy lava flow. As for exerting control
Speaker 1: before the lava starts flowing, Lechner says it's mostly science
Speaker 1: fiction daydreaming volcanology research instead focuses on advancing methods of
Speaker 1: monitoring and prediction. However, he writes, it's not absurd to
Speaker 1: think that our own hubrists might encourage us to attempt
Speaker 1: to modify a volcanic eruption. Humans have a history of
Speaker 1: large scale engineering feats that have forever modified the service
Speaker 1: of the Earth. Today's episode is written by Julia Layton
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil. For more on this and
Speaker 1: lots of other explosive topics, visit our home planet, how
Speaker 1: Stuff Works dot com.