What would happen if a huge bomb (atom bomb, hydrogen bomb, helium bomb, whatever - some big, bad bomb) were detonated below surface level in a volcano? Would the core stop spinning, or the earth split apart?
WRS
What would happen if a huge bomb (atom bomb, hydrogen bomb, helium bomb, whatever - some big, bad bomb) were detonated below surface level in a volcano? Would the core stop spinning, or the earth split apart?
WRS
Why should the core stop spinning (there’s a movie about this, isn’t there?).
IANAGeologist but assuming
The pressure wave from the explosion might eject some magma, but would more likely create stress fractures along the magma chamber/volcano neck, releasing the pressure on the magma chamber and reducing the chance of an eruption.
Of course if you dropped a black hole into a volcano, that’s a different story.
Mangetout - the movie’s “The Core,” and it’s what brought the question to my mind. My intelligent friend scoffed at the question, and didn’t answer it. I’m more curious about the aftereffects, whether or not they involve the core, which I believe to be unaffectable anyway.
So, it wouldn’t cause tons of earthquakes or volcanic explosions?
And what would happen if a black hole were dropped down a volcano?
WRS
Look you’re playing with say 100MTons of explosive. That works out, roughly, to 5x10^17 J of energy.
Now your bomb is what 2.5 km below the surface and the whole blast is focused up at the mouth of the volcano (say a circle 500 m wide). You’re pushing against, about 1.5x10^12 kg of good old mother earth. You’re going to need a bigger bomb.
As for the black hole …
The core wouldn’t even be close to being touched. It’s not like it’s right underneath the volcano. It’s close to 4,000 miles away.
And even if you could somehow get a bomb all the way down to the core (using the movie’s “unobtainium” armor…), it wouldn’t likely do anything. The core is HUGE. Beyond huge.
As everyone who’s seen the movie Crack in the World knows, it stops the crack in the world from propagating in the direction it had been going. Unfortunately, it re-directs the crack, and when it completes the circle, out pops a new moon. Against all the laws of physics. And without wreaking havoc on the Earth. I kbnow this, because I saw it in a movie.:
http://us.imdb.com/Title?0059065
Looks like between Crack in the World (1965) and The Core (2003) moviemakers haven’t improved their knowledge of Geoscience.
Maybe someday someone will make an interesting movie about the Subduction of the Indian Subcontinent and the Rise of the Himalayas. But I wouldn’t hold my breath.
The volcano magma isn’t a direct link to the core, I thought. It’s just a magma “bubble” that rose to the surface. If I’m remembering correctly and that’s true, a bomb in a volcano would have no more effect on the core as a bomb anywhere else.
I haven’t seen The Core yet. Is this how the core is stopped in that film? With a bomb in a volcano?
I haven’t either but I think the core stops due to <cue ominous music> the US military (likely HARP). Why? Mad scientist Nazis are passé.
I think they detonate a bomb near the core triggering convection to start up again triggering the dynamo generated magnetic field.
Oh and people sacrifice themselves. You’ll never see that coming.
The core doesn’t stop in Crack in the World. In the earlier film an attempt to break through the crust to the magma for some ill-defined Good Reason results in a crack that begins to propagate around the world. Kinda like when my windshield got hit with a rock. The put a nuclear bomb down a volcano that just happens to be in the Crack’s path to create a hole that will, it is hoped, stop the crack from, propagating further. It doesn’t work.
So, would anything of note (either catastrophic or scientific) have happened if US researchers had drilled down to the Moho (near Hawaii, I thought) as some had proposed to do last century?
Well, according to a Voyage to the Bottom of the Sea comic book from back around 1964, the release from the Moho will turn all the local sea creatures into prehistoric monsters and will release a mold-like plague aboard the Seaview. (You see that I get all my scientific knowledge from the most reliable of sources. But at least it encouraged me to find out that a “mohole” is a hole in the Mohorovicic discontinuity.)
Nevertheless,
a magnetic pole reversal is likely to happen some time in the next 100, 000 years -
this event must involve a change of state in the rotation of the core, however slight.
Sci - fi worldbuilding at
http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html
FWIW, cinematic bad guys Lex Luthor (Superman) and Count Zorin (A View To A Kill) believed that by detonating an atom bomb in the San Andreas Fault, they could scuttle California in the Pacific and make a killing in real estate speculation. Of course, the good guys prevailed, so the theory wasn’t able to be properly tested…
My advice? Stick to volcanoes – there seems to be a jinx when it comes to bombing tectonic faultlines!
Not MY volcano please!!!
Strange we pondered the bomb in the volcano thing during the last eruption
:eek:
The Bad Astronomer reviews movies with respect to the science (especially Astronomy) that they contain (I’ve pointed the link to his Movies page so that you can decide if you want the ‘spoilers’ or ‘no spoilers’ page). IIRC, he actually puts some numbers to the amount of energy required to affect the core to illustrate just how ridiculous the scientific premise of the movie is.
Well the tree-huggers will certainly be up in arms over the native populations of Morlocks, Molemen and C.H.U.Ds who will be affected by your mad experiment.
That’s what sets this board apart. Our intelligent people will scoff at your question, and then they’ll do their damndest to answer it to the best of their knowledge.