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Politics : Politics of Energy -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: teevee who wrote (46334)	1/21/2014 3:58:46 AM
From: Maurice Winn	Respond to of 86356

Taupo is a continuing cycle of eruption far, far from finished. It reloads from Kermadec trench subduction with a cycle of something like 2000 years, give or take 1000 years. While an earthquake could precipitate eruption by displacing the water surface to reduce pressure, mere shaking might or might not be sufficient as the process is one of pressure reduction at the surface or pressure increase at the base of the column from further subduction. A subduction slip might be sufficient to initiate an eruption, propelled by tectonic movement. It's not just Taupo either. There is a rift valley running from Taupo to Rotorua, with various lakes which filled after dirty great eruptions, such as Rotorua's. Going over the rim of the Rotorua crater to Tauranga shows the scale of the Rotorua eruption as there are large road cuttings dug into the frozen frothy crater rim. The eruptive area extends out to White Island with Matata a likely candidate for another giant eruptive region as the volcanicity continues to migrate from where it was millions of years ago out in the Tasman sea, much as the Hawaii eruption has moved east forming a chain of islands. From Taupo out to White island and the transcurrent alpine fault and the Kermadec subduction there's a LOT going on in the region. A rift valley, twisting, sliding, subduction, ophiolites to the north, volcanoes all over as the Australian and Pacific plates mangle each other and smash up. It's not quite such a simple matter as upward force building up until downward force is reduced sufficiently by a Jupiter, Saturn, Neptune, Venus etc co-ordinated fly-by, but I stand by my straw on the camel's back theory for the long period volcanoes such as Taupo, though not so much for Ruapehu which fires off any old time or White Island which continuously is blowing off. The little phreatic volcanoes around Auckland's harbour are from water on hot rock. Taupo is a vast column of liquid turning to gas forming pumice. I drove through the Taupo caldera a couple of days ago, and along the rift valley floor, around lake Taupo and over the hills to Tauranga and relative safety. It astounds me that 100,000 people are spread out over the region, blissfully unaware of the certainty of further eruption any time. But at least the government ensures they wear crash helmets when they ride bicycles. When catastrophe happens, they'll investigate and pass laws and "make sure it never happens again." They should get ahead of the game and make sure it never happens in the first place. It's not as though the volcanoes are hiding. Mqurice