This might belong in IMHO, but I’m not quite sure. My apologies to the Mods for the trouble if they have to bump it. Anyway…
…suppose I had unlimited (or dang near close to unlimited) resources, could I trigger a massive eruption in an otherwise dormant volcano? Say, Mt. Rainier, for this example. Even if we were talking about a Mount St. Helens scale eruption, rather than one on the scale of Krakatoa or kilauea. Not that an eruption that big wouldn’t be prefered, of course.
The only limit on the question is that the suggestions can’t be physically impossible (i.e., no magic), or out of the reach of believable near present-day technological development (i.e., no Nanobots).
Well, what say you, dopers? Anyone have any ideas on how one could make the “Latverian Dream” a reality?
Hmmm, perhaps with the pressure in the magma chamber being what it should be you could probably have a lot of fun with a drilling derrick from those oil wells. Create a nice tube down to the chamber and you’d probably get a nice sprout like sticking a pin in a water balloon. Be sure to run like hell before you break into the chamber.
I’d say for a real massive eruption completely of your own making you’d want to go to the ocean floor. There the crust is really thin.
Or you could try going to some volcano with lots of glaciers on top and melt them with your unlimited devices. With floods washing away support from the sides and all that weight taken off of the summit something fun might happen. You’ll never know until you try.
You could place several hundred megatons worth of nuclear weapons in the creater of a volcano and detonate them simultaneously. It wouldn’t really be an eruption, but it might look like one.
You could cast a spell to create these nanobots, and… Oh. Wait a minute.
Okay, it’s very simple: Find the place where the magma chamber is closest to the surface. Dig a hole as deep as you can. Fill it with water. Wait. Although the water may evaporate, an eruption is virtually guaranteed eventually.
As long as I’m at it, here’s how to cure the common cold: Drink a shot of whisky first thing in the morning. Repeat daily as necessary. In a week or ten days, your cold should be cured.
Probably the easiest way would be for you to become a god.
Explosives are not likely to penetrate enough to cause release and I doubt you’d be able to get a drill bit into a magma chamber. Even if you did, there’s no certainty that a tiny 9 5/8" hole will produce a volcano. Short of attaining godliness, your next best bet would be to find one that’s just about to blow on its own and try to upset the surface. But then what’s the point?
Water is the key, as most volcanic eruptions are diven by water.
Also, a-bombs have been used to break up underground rock in the past, so…
How about drilling six or eight shafts in a circle down from sea level to near the magma chamber, drop a small atomic bomb down each one to open the rock up a bit, then let the sea pour down the shafts into the resulting fractured rock-
might work…
There’s a whole bunch of ways to get a volcano to release lava and gas and great gouts of flaming everything - but what you’re looking for is an eruption. These are the result of pressure building up to unmanageable levels and the top of the mountain blowing off - the only thing an explosion would do was let it out early and give you a less satisfacotry total BOOM.
An oil derrick - style digging operation? Open a small tube down to a pool of magma and you’d get some flow, al right, but it would be slow and uninteresting. It would freeze solid again as soon as the pressure in the pool below was not enough to push the molten rock all the way up to you.
I agree with eburacum45. You need some water to drive the explosion. Also, make sure you have a good composite volcano. Mt. Ranier would be a good choice, especially considering it is way past due to blow anyway. I believe it is currently considered the most dangerous volcano in America. What makes a volcano go boom is the escape of gases (referred to as volatiles) from the magma as pressure decreases as it nears the surface. the most prevalent volatile is water. (BTW the main difference between lava and magma is the loss of volatiles.) Also, you need a nice thick andesitic lava. Drilling the ocean floor probably wouldn’t work because the magma would probably be a fluid basaltic lava that would just ooze out; however, you may end up with your own island like Hawaii. Hope this helps answer your question
I dunno. Didn’t Dr. Who try to stop that science team from drilling into the earth’s core? They shoulda listened, that’s for sure.
I’m no geologist (well, I took that one course…) but I’d say your best bet is to blow up a fault line that includes a volcano. (similar to your Zorin Industries plan). Make sure all escape-dirigible mooring lines are stowed, and it should go off w/o a hitch.
IANAGeologist, but wasn’t Mt. St. Helens triggered by a landslide? Find a volcano that’s ripe, locate the biggest bulge in the side, and use a small atomic or large amount of conventional explosives to trigger a landslide right on top to the bulge. Blammo–you’ve incinerated Vacouver.
I had always thought Mt St. Helens occurred the other way around- the eruption was more of an explosion that blew half of the mountain off, causing great sheets of rock/mud to slide away.
A meteor strike should do it quite nicely. We’ve already landed a probe on an asteroid, so landing one with a thruster to nudge it out of orbit is quite possible. Do your orbital mathematics correctly, be patient, and have it hit near your target volcano.
The May 18, 1980, eruption of Mount St. Helens was triggered by a 5.1 magnitude earthquake, centered approximately one mile beneath the volcano. The earthquake shattered the bulging north face causing the eruption to spread out across the north flank of the mountain (and not generally upwards). The eruption was preceded by two months of intense activity that included more than 10,000 earthquakes, hundreds of small phreatic (steam-blast) explosions, and the outward growth of the volcano’s entire north flank by more than 80 meters (at times growing more than two meters a day.
The explosive force of the blast was estimated to be 24 megatons of thermal energy (seven by blast, and rest through release of heat).
Triggering a volcanic eruption predisposes existing pressure and energy within a volcano, along with a human-induced event to release that energy almost immediately to cause an eruption. Drilling into a volcano and using a nuclear detontation, seawater or anything else will not result in a volcanic eruption if the magma chamer is not in the process of filling and under intense pressure at the time.
BTW, even though Mount St. Helens is classified as an active volcano (not dormant, but active), don’t expect another massive eruption anytime soon. Then again, I could be wrong (but not in this case).
A new eruption of Mount St. Helens would not incinerate Vancouver, WA, by any means. The greater dangers are the mud slides caused by volcanic eruptions of Mt. Rainier (Seattle) and Mt. Hood (Portland), both at significant risk of erupting within the next 50 years.
It’s finally taken 1,600-plus posts to finally answer a question that I have intimate knowledge, owning, if anything to my state Location!
Pre-WW2 Hawaii, US Army Air Corps bombers, & they were trying to stop the eruption. Geologists pinpointed the best locale, & the Army Flyboys did their best.
The Volcano did stop erupting, but nobody knows if the bombing did the trick, & nobody’s tried the stunt since.
My source, a History Channel program, but yeah, I know, that counts for next-to-diddly.
