Why Don't Volcanoes Cause More Destruction Despite Their Massive Power?

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Volcanoes, despite their immense power, tend to cause less destruction than one might expect due to their explosive nature, which vents energy into the atmosphere rather than directly onto the ground. For instance, the eruption of Mt. St. Helens, while significantly more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, resulted in limited casualties and damage primarily because few people lived nearby. The rarity of large eruptions and the fact that they often occur in less populated areas also contribute to lower human impact. Additionally, volcanic eruptions release energy over a longer duration compared to the instantaneous release of energy in nuclear explosions, further mitigating immediate destruction. Harnessing volcanic energy for power generation is challenging, but geothermal energy from volcanic activity is being utilized in some regions, demonstrating a potential for sustainable energy sources.
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Howcome VOlcanoes don't destroy more stuff? I've noticed that volcanoes can be tens of thousands of times more powerful than the nuke on Hiroshima ,take Mt.St.Helens. Helens was close to 27,000 times more powerful that that bomb dropped but didn't do nearly as much damage. A 20 megaton nuke can be felt up to 40 miles away but from the looks of it The Mt.St.Eruption didn't go out more than 3 miles or so. With that kind of power I'd expect a huge crate about 7 miles from center to edge. But all that happen was the trees in the surrounded forest got leveled, the wildlife burned and around 60 people died. I know not a lot of people were not around the immediate vacinity but that's not a lot of casualties. With many many thousands of megatons in kinetic power I'd think that the person whom took those pictures while it was erupting would have just fried to death. I don't know that it was a person now but a camera shouldn't stand that force.

And then there's Mt.Penatubo...Mt.St.Helens big grandpa...could knock a whole island off the map.
 
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(Krakatoa, when it get go last century, blew the top third of the mountain off. The sound was heard 4000 miles away and the shock wave traveled around the Earth twice. It is the largest eruption in recorded history.)


But volcanic eruptions aren't like nuclear bombs. Unlike bombs, don't vent their force upon the ground, they vent it into the atmosphere. Unlike nuclear bombs they don't happen 570 metres from densely populated areas. They're just not designed to destroy.
 
DaveC426913 said:
(Krakatoa, when it get go last century, blew the top third of the mountain off. The sound was heard 4000 miles away and the shock wave traveled around the Earth twice. It is the largest eruption in recorded history.)


But volcanic eruptions aren't like nuclear bombs. Unlike bombs, don't vent their force upon the ground, they vent it into the atmosphere. Unlike nuclear bombs they don't happen 570 metres from densely populated areas. They're just not designed to destroy.
Of course, another reason why volcanoes don't tend to do a lot of damage on the human population is that most humans would be reluctant to settle down in the vicinity of a smoking and fire-belching mountain..:rolleyes:
 
I have flown right over the top of what's left of Mt. St. Helens (when I was stationed in Washington). If you were to see for yourself the size and depth of the chunk that is now missing, you would be asking how anyone near could survive it. Then again, you could also ask the people of Pompei...
 
If you saw the craters produced by the underground nuclear tests in Nevada you would recognize that, as large as they are, they pale in comparison with volcanic craters such as Mt. St. Helens or Krakatoa.
 
Line said:
A 20 megaton nuke can be felt up to 40 miles away but from the looks of it The Mt.St.Eruption didn't go out more than 3 miles or so. With that kind of power I'd expect a huge crate about 7 miles from center to edge. But all that happen was the trees in the surrounded forest got leveled, the wildlife burned and around 60 people died. I know not a lot of people were not around the immediate vacinity but that's not a lot of casualties.



The northward-directed lateral blast of rock, ash, and hot gas devastated an area of about 150 square miles. The blast stripped trees from most hill slopes within six miles north of the volcano and leveled nearly all vegetation for as far as 13 miles in a 180-degree arc north of the mountain
From here I think you way understate the damage done
 
Wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow harness the power of a volcano?
27 thousand times the energyof Hiroshima could power a nice sized town for a considerablee amount of time. ALway wondered why we don't harness the destructive power of the Earth...that and lightning.
 
Keep in mind that the energy release in a nuclear explosion occurs on a μs to ms time scale, and that the volcanic "explosion" is generally going on over hours.
 
Line said:
Wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow harness the power of a volcano?
27 thousand times the energyof Hiroshima could power a nice sized town for a considerablee amount of time. ALway wondered why we don't harness the destructive power of the Earth...that and lightning.

There are two main reasons we don't normally try to harnass the power of natural disasters.
1- How to collect the energy. I don't know about you, but I'm pretty stumped on how to convert an explosive eruption into electricity. Similarly, it would be more trouble than its worth to make a turbine strong enough to survive and operate during a hurrican or tornado.

2- The more powerful the event, the rarer they are. With most phenomena like this, the big events put out a lot of energy, but the sum of all the smaller and more frequent events put out more in the long run. I've often heard hurricanes expressed in x hiroshimas of energy too, but if a hurricane has a return period of say 20-30 years in a certain area, in the long haul it is much more worthwhile to build smaller turbines to collect the normal winds in the time in between the storms.
 
  • #10
Well take a volcano. We could put some kind of pressure converter in it while the intense pressure is building electric current is being generated.

And then there's lightning...somethat occurs often. If we could have some lightning rods out in a field or allong the highways that would produce alotof energy. Even if there's not a storm,there's alway lighting somwhere.
 
  • #11
FredGarvin said:
I have flown right over the top of what's left of Mt. St. Helens (when I was stationed in Washington). If you were to see for yourself the size and depth of the chunk that is now missing, you would be asking how anyone near could survive it. Then again, you could also ask the people of Pompei...

There was a news camera guy right at Mt.St.Helen's when she blew. He was from KIRO NEWS Seattle. He thought he was going to die but he kept on commentating and shooting footage.

He caught the moment when the actual mountain was blown wide open by the heartiest of blasts the mountain produced during its eruption.

At first it was a calm day and he's out there investigating the geological reports of the possibility of an eruption. He was about 5 miles from the crater itself.

Then it blew and he was thrown around, soon to be in shock. The sky started getting black with this growing black cloud of smoke and debris coming from St.Helens, his vid.camera capturing the advancing menace of darkness. He was on the side of the volcano where the liquifaction of the soil and sand and loose rocks began to move down the mountainside. On the other side is where the devistation is today evident to the trees... for miles and miles around... blown over by the blast.

This guy is so in shock by now that he's talking about his car... he wonders why its not there... or is he lost... he's wandering and kind of praying for his life at the same time.

Then he gets a shot of his car being carried away in a river of mud moving at about 60 miles per hour... down the mountain some more.

And all I heard of the whole eruption was what sounded like someone's chimney exploding... across the street... since it was saturday @ 9:00am after a friday night out.:rolleyes:

PS. The news guy actually got out ok. He had been broadcasting live so they had a fix on him. I'd like to recommend him for a geology reporting medal of honour or something.
 
  • #12
Line said:
Wouldn't it be cool if we could somehow harness the power of a volcano?
27 thousand times the energyof Hiroshima could power a nice sized town for a considerable amount of time. ALway wondered why we don't harness the destructive power of the Earth...that and lightning.

The problem is the POWER - too much energy in too short a period of time.

It would useful to harness the "energy", i.e. geothermal energy, at a much slower rate. This being done in some areas, e.g. Iceland, NZ, and parts of the US, and others.
 
  • #13
volcanoes are of different kinds. the ordinary volcanoes at the edge of oceanic plates and the shield volcanoes. can you tell me what are shield volcanoes and why do they occur? they seem to have had an effect on life- the Deccan shield and the Siberian shield eruptions were contemporary to two major mass extinction events. also what role did volcanoes play in gradual accretion of continents during Earth's history.
 
  • #15
Andre said:
Well if it is not mantle plumes could it be related to earlier large antipode bolide impacts or are mass extinctions related to both at random?

I found this while searching for information about the volcanic eruption from between 400 - 600 ad... thought to be the first Krakatoa eruption before it blew again in the 1800s.

http://www.redorbit.com/news/science/384214/impact_of_krakatoa_eruptions_lasted_decades_study/

This article suggests that global warming would be much further along today if it wasn't for this eruption.

The first eruption was of a much more massive scale and dumped Earth into a nuclear winter for a number of years... as is seen in tree rings and from litrature from the "dark ages". Reports of crop failure and other unearthly occurances abound from that period including the Black Plague. This illustrates the effects that major eruptions could have on the climate and life on earth.

Krakatau volcano lies in the Sunda strait between the islands of Java and Sumatra. In about 416 A.D., caldera collapse destroyed the volcano and formed a 4-mile (7-km) wide caldera. The islands of Krakatau, Verlaten, and Lang are remnants of this volcano.

From: http://volcano.und.nodak.edu/vwdocs/current_volcs/krakatau/krakatau.html
 
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