"Blows its top" is also very misleading. It most likely conjures visions of Mount St Helens or Krakatoa. It the case of Kilauea it will be ground water interactions causing steam explosions about 300 meters down the shaft of the summit crater. These can be quite nasty because any loose rock in the shaft becomes projectiles in a 300m long scattergun. Also a lot of dust and small debris can be entrained in the gas flow and be carried to high altitudes. It can also cause low temperature pyroclastic flows. Low temperature in this case means superheated steam temperature rather than near incandescent rock temperature. It will still kill you by scalding if you get caught by it. But blowing its top is not quite the scenario the vulcanologists are warning about.
You might have a lot of barrel wear from all the contaminants. But if there is a reasonable way to make a steam powered gun that can launch a payload to orbit then you should be able to use a volcano to power it.
Quite possibly the most important petition to ever have been put up on change.org . Or not. Either way, you know this makes sense. (Caution : The comments contain strong language, and may not be safe for human beings, never mind work.) https://www.change.org/p/the-australian-public-reform-the-band-tism-and-represent-australian-at-eurovision-2015
"Blows its top" is also very misleading. It most likely conjures visions of Mount St Helens or Krakatoa. It the case of Kilauea it will be ground water interactions causing steam explosions about 300 meters down the shaft of the summit crater. These can be quite nasty because any loose rock in the shaft becomes projectiles in a 300m long scattergun. Also a lot of dust and small debris can be entrained in the gas flow and be carried to high altitudes. It can also cause low temperature pyroclastic flows. Low temperature in this case means superheated steam temperature rather than near incandescent rock temperature. It will still kill you by scalding if you get caught by it.
ReplyDeleteBut blowing its top is not quite the scenario the vulcanologists are warning about.
I am now visualising something like that as a planetary defence system... It strikes me as sort of Heath Robinson meets E.E. "Doc" Smith!
ReplyDeleteYou might have a lot of barrel wear from all the contaminants. But if there is a reasonable way to make a steam powered gun that can launch a payload to orbit then you should be able to use a volcano to power it.
ReplyDeleteVolcano spews refrigerators. You wouldn't believe what happens next!
ReplyDeletehttps://lh3.googleusercontent.com/tWkSJRa4qukRPwqnzO2GTd-I8_C8JijXzzTTuiFReAzaT9zspiIlckc0ztNTdtpwOYtflILGX267L_0=s0
chilling
ReplyDeleteSomeone has discover a natural source of refrigerators!
ReplyDeleteI do hope they contain legal refrigerates.
ReplyDelete