Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article

To: KC Burke

This is more than about flooding.

A volcano under ice is putting out heat as well as hydrogen sulfide which turns into sulfuric acid that breaks down the rock underneath. The combination of the degraded rock and water “greases the skids” and when the heat finally melts the glacier to where it breaks off, you can get a lahar (a massive landslide, mud/debris flow) that can travel 100 miles per hour down a mountainside and literally fill the valley below in less than an hour.

That can happen even if there is no eruption of the volcano.


20 posted on 08/23/2014 9:12:17 AM PDT by seowulf (Cogito cogito, ergo cogito sum. Cogito.---Ambrose Bierce)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 16 | View Replies ]


To: seowulf

Folks who live in the valleys around Mt. Rainier have to think about that as well.


23 posted on 08/23/2014 9:18:27 AM PDT by hoagy62 ("Tyranny, like hell, is not easily conquered..."-Thomas Paine. 1776)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies ]

To: seowulf

I understand those issues. I just wish that when they start spouting statistical data they get it close and begin to explain the relevance.

I certainly hope that the loss of life is prevented or minimized but we never know the full magnitude of one of these until it gets underway. This one looks bad in a geographic sense.


33 posted on 08/23/2014 9:40:13 AM PDT by KC Burke (Gowdy for Supreme Court)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 20 | View Replies ]

Free Republic
Browse · Search
News/Activism
Topics · Post Article


FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson