Friday, August 8, 2008

Dramatic eruption photos from Chile's Chaiten volcano


This is old news (May 08), but this picture is fantastic! More pictures at news.com.au.
The volcano had been dormant for 9,000 years near the coast of Chile erupted spectacularly, hurling liquefied metals and lightning many miles into the sky. The results, which you see here, is called a "dirty thunderstorm," and is quite rare. Nobody is certain what causes them, but according to National Geographic it's believed to be "the result of rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume colliding to produce static charges—just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms."

5 comments:

______________________________ said...
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kae said...

spam deleted

Boy on a bike said...

Any guess how much CO2 that baby is spewing out?

How do we stop it doing that?

We could start by tossing Penny Wong in.

But seriously, what is the difference between volcanos and bloodnuts?

One hurls liquefied metals and lightning many miles into the sky, and the other is a large pile of rock.

kae said...

Yes, Boy.
Everyone knows that CO2 is the deadliest poison known to Gaia, and man.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOMED.

That eruption was in May, so how much has the temperature of earth gone up?

Mmmmm?

Maate. I'd love to be able to hurl a few lightning bolts at some twerps, but I haven't quite perfected it yet.

Minicapt said...

"We could start by tossing Penny Wong in."
Followed by prosecution for improper disposal of a toxic substance.

Cheers