Speaker 1: Welcome to brain Stuff production of I Heart Radio. Hey
Speaker 1: brain Stuff, I'm Lauren Vogue Bomb and this this is
Speaker 1: a classic brain Stuff episode. Volcanic eruptions can be one
Speaker 1: of Earth's mightiest disasters, but we humans are pretty mighty too,
Speaker 1: So we got to wondering could we one day control volcanoes?
Speaker 1: Hi brain Stuff, Lauren Vogelbaum here. When Alaska's Pavlof volcano
Speaker 1: erupted in March of it ejected a cloud of ash
Speaker 1: four hundred miles or sixty 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 seems 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 have 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 return 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 Etnas spewed about three cubic feet that's ten cubic
Speaker 1: meters of lava per second during its four month eruption
Speaker 1: in three lets Know reports that in nine, Mount Pinatubo's
Speaker 1: initial blast ejected about two point four cubic miles or
Speaker 1: ten cubic kilometers of material to an altitude of about
Speaker 1: twenty five miles or forty kilometers. He says that magma
Speaker 1: represents massive amounts of energy. It originates deep inside the Earth,
Speaker 1: where extreme temperatures and pressures can melt rock. Molten rock,
Speaker 1: or magma is lighter than solid rock, so it rises,
Speaker 1: forming a magma chamber that moves upward through Earth's crust.
Speaker 1: As the volume of magma grows, the pressure in the
Speaker 1: chamber increases, forcing magma through the volcanoes vents tubes formed
Speaker 1: by prior eruptions sealed at the surface by a lid
Speaker 1: of rock. If the pressure gets high enough and Event
Speaker 1: suddenly opens to the atmosphere, the rapid depressurization causes gases
Speaker 1: to come out of solution, which causes the magma to explode.
Speaker 1: It 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 Lechener says that extreme pressure had forced Event lid
Speaker 1: to bulge outward, a classic sign of impending eruption, and
Speaker 1: a landslide took it off to modify that eruption. Lechner 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, Newton, 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 Cleametti, 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: eruption by slowly depressurizing the chamber either. Lechner wrote, we
Speaker 1: have to get past the misconception that a magma chamber
Speaker 1: is like a fluid filled balloon or soda bottle that
Speaker 1: we can gently insert a straw and suck out the
Speaker 1: lava and gas. We're talking about pressures and volumes of
Speaker 1: 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 and by the pressure of the chamber that escape
Speaker 1: violently when the chamber depressurized. Generally speaking, it seems the
Speaker 1: main problem facing human modication of volcanic eruptions is that
Speaker 1: it's laughably impossible. Volcanoes are too big and volcanic eruptions
Speaker 1: are too powerful. Yet, says Janet Bab, geologist with the
Speaker 1: U s GS Hawaiian Volcano 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 Vree, the lava
Speaker 1: from a volcano on the Icelandic island of Haymi was
Speaker 1: flowing into towns. Officials built barriers to stop its progress
Speaker 1: 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 was written by Julia Layton
Speaker 1: and produced by Tristan McNeil and Tyler Playing. For more
Speaker 1: on this and lots of other explosive topics, visit how
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