Volcanoes have always attracted both scientists and ordinary people. It was the study of volcanoes that allowed scientists to put forward many hypotheses about complex physical and chemical processes taking place at a depth of thousands of kilometers.

Volcanic eruption

Volcanic eruptions can begin in different ways. Sometimes a dormant giant warns in advance of his imminent awakening. In this case, small-scale earthquakes occur in its vicinity, and smoke with an admixture of ash comes out of the vent before the lava flows, which rises high into the atmosphere and prevents the rays of the Sun from penetrating to the earth's surface. It even happens that the phenomena preceding the very eruption of the volcano begin a few weeks or even months before the lava leaves the volcano. But this does not always happen. Sometimes a volcanic eruption occurs almost instantly, without preliminary warning signs.

Volcanic eruption rate

Scientists have found that the speed of this process directly depends on the substance that forms the basis of lava. These substances have different melting points and different effects on the lava flow, in which andesite and dacite predominate in slowly erupting volcanoes, and rhyolite in rapidly erupting volcanoes. In addition to the chemical composition of the lava, the amount of gases dissolved in the lava has a great influence on the rate of volcanic eruption. The more of them, the higher the flow rate.Sometimes, with a very large amount of gases, an explosion can occur, leading to a rapid exit of the avalanche from the volcanic vent.

Lava exit experiment

Some data on volcanoes were confirmed in laboratory conditions: the rhyolite was heated to 800 degrees Celsius, which approximately corresponds to the temperature of the volcanic bowels at the beginning of the eruption. It has been proven that under these conditions this substance becomes very fluid due to its low viscosity. Therefore, in real conditions, it allows him to leave the vent of the volcano at high speed. Unfortunately, the impetus for this experiment was a natural disaster that occurred in Chile in the town of Chaiten, which is located 10 kilometers from the volcano of the same name.

The tragedy occurred on May 1, 2008. Less than a day before the eruption, intense tremors began, and soon smoke and ash began to rise into the atmosphere. Everything happened so quickly that it was almost impossible to carry out rescue measures. The eruption was long and intense, which could be observed even from near-Earth orbit. It was an event of a global scale, followed by scientists from many countries. The analysis of pumice samples was carried out by two scientists - Donald Dingwell and Jonathan Castro.

As a result of the experiment, it turned out that the lava rose from about five kilometer depth with an amazingly high speed - 1 meter per second. Therefore, at this speed, it took only about 4 hours to reach the earth's surface.During chemical analysis, a significant rhyolite content was found. Also, pumice contained a large number of voids, which indicates a significant gas content in the erupting lava.

These data served as the key to uncovering the secrets of such a rapid exit of lava from the bowels of the earth. Volcanoes are a very interesting and exciting topic for research. They are fraught with many mysteries, which many scientists of the future will have to unravel.