| | | Taupo caldera. Yes, it has been rumbling and alert level 1 has been given. 1 of 6 levels, up from 0 = quiescent. For several decades I have pondered Taupo and the rest of the volcanic zone but Taupo is the one that counts because Rotorua caldera, which is picking up pace as the volcanicity moves from west to east over hundreds of thousands of years, is not a biggie for now. But of course, it'll be building.
Meanwhile, decades ago I calculated Taupo risk as 1 in 10 in a 70 year lifetime. That's far too much risk for me to spend much time at all there and definitely not living there as about 100,000 people do in the region that would be affected by a big bang.
Several years ago, I increased the risk to 1 in 10 in a 50 year period. That's an insane risk for a family to live there. I could understand a single man living in the region logging trees to make money. A few days fishing might be worthwhile and I have done that [nervously].
Another calculation I've made is that 12 March is the likely date of eruption [or a day either side]. That's because of orbital mechanics and super high tides which causes reduction in pressure holding the lid on the super-heated liquids which propel the eruptions. Also the lake level is low then. Also air pressure lows can happen then.
Unlike normal volcanoes, Taupo eruptions are more like a geyser than lava eruptions which have little or almost no gas [such as Hawaiian volcanoes].
Also, the very long period between Taupo eruptions means many years go by with the upward pressure nearly enough but just a tiny bit short. So that's why 12 March rather than some random date during the year will be the date.
When the downward pressure due to hydrostatic lake pressure, groundwater, ground and air pressure is reduced to the upward pressure from the low density magma, very low density liquid hydrocarbons and super-heated water, it takes just a fractional reduction in downward pressure for the super-heated liquids to start turning to gas, therefore expanding dramatically, pushing the ground under the lake up, displacing water in the lake above the rising magma, thereby reducing downward pressure further, which means more super-heated liquid turns to gas, which pushes upward forcing more water and dirt upward and water sideways, which further reduces the pressure which causes deeper super-heated liquid to turn to gas and the process breaks through the surface of the lake bed [which no longer has water over the lake bed because the water has been displaced sideways] with first steam blowing up and out along with soil, and the whole process of expanding super-heated liquids starts going faster.
First it's just water turning to steam at the surface but as the eruption proceeds to greater depths, super-heated hydrocarbons reach the atmosphere and all hell breaks loose. The hydrocarbons at 1000 degrees Celsius take zero time to ignite after atmospheric oxygen meets them and a vast explosion starts. Think Elon Musk's heavy lifter times millions all going at once.
The less the downward load the faster the eruption, accelerating until 200 km of the eruption column have gone into the sky, the top being about 40 km, with liquid pumice flowing outward and down the Waikato river
valley at about 100 km per hour for 100 km. Gigatons of fine pumice will blow downwind [normally heading east].
Something like 1000 km3 will be fired out in a matter of minutes and hours rather than days. Nobody will be evacuated because liquids turning to gases happens fast [see videos of people making bottles of Coca Cola fire out when something is dropped in causing all the CO2 to turn to gas in seconds].
Because Lake Taupo is centrally located, and most of our electricity comes from hydroelectric dams in that catchment area, and Huntly coal-fired power station is on the edge of the river for cooling, electricity supplies north of Taupo will be reduced by 98%. Hospitals, internet suppliers, a few hotels, and whatnot have emergency diesel powered generators so they could keep operating. A few people have photovoltaics.
Water for Auckland region is about 60% from the Waikato River so that's going to be a big problem. But not too serious as price increases would soon cut demand as people do without or catch roof water.
Waikato farmland is dairy production country, so GDP would drop 10% [forestry and whatnot would be gone in the region]. No trains could go north-south. No roads either.
It will be a very big deal for Aotearoa-Zimbabwe previously known as New Zealand.
CO2 output would be major so we'd have climate change guilt too. Cow's producing methane would be the least of our worries.
For those who haven't seen pumice which is very light siliceous rock full of gas, a child can pick up a pumice rock as big as themselves. That shows how much super-heated liquid is entrained in the magma and it all turns to gas from liquid. Hence the super huge explosion apart from the burning hydrocarbons.
I don't know which 12 March is the likely explosion date. But I suppose/hope/fingers crossed, that rumbling beforehand for weeks and months will precede the explosion date as the final straws are loaded onto the camel's back [in this case the increasing force is upward rather than downward as on a camel].
Hopefully the people keeping an eye on the volcano and government people are not totally asleep at the wheel. I suspect they are and that they have not even figured out the date of the eruption so that evacuation warnings can be given. I certainly will NOT be anywhere near the region on 12 March next year given the amount of rumbling that has been going on. 2019 had quite a bit of rumbling too.
It seems absurd that government authorities allow people to build houses where their families have a 10% chance of being killed over a 50% period.
Teslas and swarms of other electric cars will stop working.
I want to build a nuclear reactor by Kaipara harbour but government people would stop me. When they run out of electricity after the eruption they'll be so sad and hold a big public enquiry as to why they didn't know Taupo would erupt and why there's no electricity.
The government is made of ignorant hippie bludger commies. Who incidentally think a nuclear war with Russia is an excellent idea = to stop democracy in Luhansk, Donetsk....
People voted for them and put them in charge. Voting is limited in merits, that's for sure. Weirdly, many people think voting is ipso facto a good thing to do - even when morons do it.
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