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Politics : Politics for Pros- moderated

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To: carranza2 who wrote (285979)	1/1/2009 4:34:51 PM
From: Maurice Winn	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) of 793838

C2, I have been volcano [and geologically in general] obsessive since the 1950s when my father explained as we walked around Whakarewarewa in Rotorua that it's all molten and hot and boiling etc down underneath where we were walking. I was tip toeing along the path to avoid falling through. I have recurring dreams about volcanoes still. They are very exciting up close and personal. New Zealand is a volcanic zone and I live among scoria and phreatic eruptions, the most recent of which was about 500 years ago. Taupo is a biggie caldera which is due for a blast any time and I would not live near it. It's ridiculous that the government forces people to wear crash helmets on bicycles but allows people to keep children in Taupo which will one day turn into a catastrophe along with the rest of the region. That will cut of electricity supplies to Auckland and the north because apart from being a supply zone, [hydro and geothermal] the south island electricity is carried through the area. These caldera volcanoes are not like cones which tend to shake rattle and roll and give some warning of moving magma which erupts relatively benignly in pretty fountains of red larva [though swarms of minor earthquakes is some warning in Yellowstone it seems] Phreatomagmatic pumice type eruptions go with a bang as a vast column of liquid turns to gas and combusts as it enters the atmosphere. They are a LOT of fun. That's the Taupo type. I suppose Yellowstone is similar as it goes bang. They happen in minutes and hours rather than casually over days and weeks. As soon as the pressure is off for the first liquid to turn to gas, which unburdens the lower liquids, it's all on. The whole column turns to gas and propels the solids sky high with a big bang as the hydrocarbons which have been subducted and collected for millennia in the magma chamber turn first to gas and then burn in atmospheric oxygen in a big hurry. The article you posted suggests the size of the earthquake is of concern, as though worrying that a big earthquake as on the San Andreas fault could occur. The worry is about being buried under umpty megatons of hot pumice and stuff, not being a bit shaken. 1000 cubic miles of ejecta is 100 miles x 100 miles by 100 metres deep. That's quite a lot of stuff. Lots of the fines will blow around like soot from China's factories, sand from the Sahara and Gobi and smog from Los Angeles. The southern hemisphere will remain pristine. It's hard to get sunburn in the northern hemisphere already. That should act like an excellent sun screen. The pressure can come off the column of liquids sufficiently to turn them to gas by the simply act of earth, moon and sun being aligned so that tidal action reduces the load. The first warning might be sudden removal of a lot of dirt and water as superheated water turns to steam [as in Old Faithful and other geysers]. Once the process is underway, there's no putting a cork back in it. Keep away during high tide times to reduce risk. Better still, keep away if there's the slightest hint of action such as earthquakes. The Greenhouse Effect will suddenly seem like trivia. The CO2 emitted will be a LOT. People bleating about carbon footprints will be ignored. Economic issues will be more important. They already are. Mqurice

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