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kaitouI'm a little underwhelmed by the nanowrimo help forum this year. I'm looking for some ideas on how you could theoretically 'trigger' a volcano. It can be either actually scientifically based, or magically based as long as it has a solid theory behind it. From what I understand explosives wouldn't be at all helpful.
When I asked on the nano forum I got the scintillating information that volcanoes blow when the pressure is too high, and a link to the wikipedia site. Because, gee, I didn't think to look there already. I'm trying to come up with an idea on how to artificially increase pressure in a fairly short amount of time. (few months?)
So does anyone have any possible ideas, even silly ones that could help trigger an idea? That way I won't have to go back to my useless little thread that's been buried under threads like 'vile cheeses' and 'name my character!'
Thank you!
When I asked on the nano forum I got the scintillating information that volcanoes blow when the pressure is too high, and a link to the wikipedia site. Because, gee, I didn't think to look there already. I'm trying to come up with an idea on how to artificially increase pressure in a fairly short amount of time. (few months?)
So does anyone have any possible ideas, even silly ones that could help trigger an idea? That way I won't have to go back to my useless little thread that's been buried under threads like 'vile cheeses' and 'name my character!'
Thank you!
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Date: 2007-10-23 04:59 pm (UTC)Other than that, someone caps all the vents of an active volcano?
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Date: 2007-10-23 06:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-23 05:10 pm (UTC)I got nothin'. Uh. Maybe an earthquake? Earthquake triggers volcano by increasing pressure? Then you have to figure out how to manufacture the earthquake, I guess.
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Date: 2007-10-23 05:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-23 06:03 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-23 05:20 pm (UTC)Since not many people ever want to trigger volcanic eruptions (outside James Bond movies), I'm going kind of out on a limb here. It's true that pressure built up in the magma chambers causes volcano to erupt. For some volcanoes this pressure comes from rising hot magma pushing up until the chamber can't hold it anymore. Then it comes oozing out. See Hawaiian volcanoes.
These volcanoes are very boring. Pretty, but boring.
Gases and water vapor either in the lava itself or in the rocks of the volcano cause explosive eruptions. You can't do anything with adding gases/water to the boiling lava. It comes premixed by nature. You can pipe water into the sides of the volcano. The water will percolate through cracks in the volcano and when it touches the hot magma, it will turn into steam. Steam expands and will crack the rocks further, creating even more places for magma and incoming water to go. Eventually, you'll get an eruption. Not only that, you'll get pyroclastic flows (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pyroclastic_flow), which most times are more dangerous that the flowing lava.
Other ways of triggering a volcano include triggering earthquakes underneath or near the volcano. This would cause underground shifting of magma reservoirs and can "prime the pump" so to speak when it comes to getting magma moving. You can make this step one in the evil process and pumping water into the volcano step two.
If you need any more scientific reasoning or justification on this topic, let me know. I'm always happy when I can put my geologic knowledge to ridiculous uses. XD
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Date: 2007-10-23 05:56 pm (UTC)Ok, for a little more background. This is meant to be a 'doomsday weapon.' Really, I want to trigger a suprevolcano. Dooooooom to the world. Dooooom.
I would give more information, but I don't want to ruin the plot.
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Date: 2007-10-23 06:17 pm (UTC)If you're making a Doomsday device out of a volcano, you're best bet is to use a pre-existing (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super_volcano#Known_eruptions) supervolcano (or, you know, a made up one). All supervolcanos are now dormant so triggering earthquakes with explosives to get the magma flowing, stoppering up vents (like others suggested), and filling underground magma chambers with water/gas mixtures would be a good start. The water/gas in a empty magma chamber would be really good because once the magma starts to move up and encounters said chamber, it's going to mix with it and really build the pressure up inside the volcano. It's also easier to do this way because if you put gas/water in a chamber before there's magma, you don't have to worry about coming up with complex and expensive ways to keep your pipes from melting. Even evil scientists need to save money
You want this eruptions to be big but also explosive. The more explosive the eruption, the more debris it will send up into the atmosphere. The crap in the atmosphere, the more destruction you'll get. Even better if you can get a volcano out in the ocean. Once it explode, the walls of the volcano can collapse inward trigger tsunamis as the water rushed in and then rushed back out. Nothing says destruction like 100ft walls of water!
A couple of more links to get you going:
Toba Catastrophe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theory): Wiped out 60% of the human population (which granted wasn't big at the time).
Volcano winter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volcanic_winter): Triggering this would be your best bet for global destruction
Year without a Summer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Year_Without_a_Summer): And it's happened before.
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Date: 2007-10-23 06:26 pm (UTC)Would the earthquakes have to be big ones to have any impact on the volcano?
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Date: 2007-10-23 06:38 pm (UTC)Seismic instruments would record the explosion first (which has a different seismic signal than earthquakes). Then you should get the earthquake signal (or just the earthquake signal if you're using lube). Then you'd want to wait a while because what you want to see next is an earthquake swarm. This is a series of very small, deep earthquakes that are closely spaced (sometimes within a few minutes of each other). It's what you get when magma is moving around under a volcano. It basically lets you know things are working.
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Date: 2007-10-23 05:41 pm (UTC)Also, is this accidental or intentional?
If you had a volcano that was being tapped for heat energy, via magical or sientific means - drawing off the heat to fuel something or other, for instance - I mean that's what powerplants really are, isn't it? Producing energy through combustion? So, use the heat energy from the volcano. Now, if that draw got looped back to the volcano, or something like backlashed, if the spell broke, it could stuff a lot of energy back into the volcano in too short a time, causing a buildup of energy/heat, thus pressure, especially if the volcano is either capped, naturally closed, or becomes that way somehow.
Or, sci-fi here, if a large energy source (yes, nuclear type thing), like, say, an alien spacecraft, was to either end up in a volcano or have been there for a few thousand/million years and the shields finally failed or the hull got eaten through or whatever, and the power core got shorted out by the magma, that might again trigger pressure/energy increase.
Hmmm. The earth's surface is basically under a sea of air. Now, I don't know that this is possible, since I don't know how much pressure the air actually puts on the surface, but if you had something like a giant, non-physical(or maybe physical)... hickey machine. ^.^;;; That sucked all the air off the top of a volcano and broke the top off the now-active volcano to boot? It would also be a pressure differential then, like explosive decompression from a spaceship airlock. Uh, unless the gravity of the earth counteracted that. Yeah, I have no idea, just tossing out wild theories here. ^.^;;;;
So anyhow, that's my input. ^.^;
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Date: 2007-10-23 06:02 pm (UTC)It's an intentional trigger. It's a doomsday weapon, actually.
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Date: 2007-10-23 06:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-10-23 06:03 pm (UTC)If a volcano close to a main city was linked to a dragon to keep it dormant, and the dragon put under a sleep spell, and then the culture kind of petered out and the dragon was forgotten, then some kind of idiot/righteous killer of dragons could show up a few centuries later, find the sleeping dragon, think 'ah, easy kill!', and get splatted under the exploding earthquake when the dragon's violent death made it go boom?
What's that one myth.. world serpent? Norse myth, I think. If someone were ignorant/powerful/stupid/lucky/just-plain-insane enough to kill said world serpent, then you'd get a looooot of earthquakes, and probably an exploding volcano or two would be the least of your worries (tidal waves, collapsed cities, etc etc), unless it was like the caldera that is Yellowstone National Park that'd wipe out a good part of the continent or something.
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Date: 2007-10-23 10:25 pm (UTC)Now, where is Icka when you need her...
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Date: 2007-10-24 12:58 am (UTC)<_<
>_<
... wouldn't the lava count as lube for the big hole that is the volcano opening anyway?
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Date: 2007-10-24 01:00 am (UTC)