checkmate, big geology!!

Comments

• supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Big volcanoes look like this

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  (Mount Rainier, Washington)

  The BIGGEST volcanoes look like this

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  Or this

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  Notice how they don’t have that nice big pretty volcano cone shape? It just looks like some drunk geologists scribbled on a map and drew circles around a low lying area with a lake or two in it and called it a “volcano” or a “volcanic zone”.

  The reason though is that the BIGGEST and most destructive volcanic eruptions tend to happen with lava/magma that doesn’t flow very well and thus like you getting a stuffed nose, shit gets blocked up. Like many of us, these volcanos don’t solve the problem and go take a decongestant or blow their nose, they just sits there sniveling and stewing, failing to release the pressure that keeps building and building and building.

  These eruptions are called felsic reactions (the opposite of mafic, goopy eruptions you have seen footage of from Hawaii). An immense amount of gas is released by magma as it becomes exposed to the surface as the gas is no longer kept in the magma at immense pressures. The magma can’t flow and “pass the gas” so to speak so a plug forms and what you get is a terrifyingly big pressure cooker that just builds and builds like that person on the plane next to you that just keeps sniffing and sniffing and never blowing their nose.

  When it finally explodes because the built up pressure overcomes the plug the explosion is so catastrophic it doesn’t leave a clean volcano shape. What you are left with is an uneven low topography dotted with lakes that marks the site of an incomprehensibly large explosion, hence the topography of Yellowstone and the Taupo Volcanic Zone.

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  • Blue_Morpho@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    So you are saying we need more concrete?

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    • the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Paving over all of Yellowstone is the only right answer.

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    • NounsAndWords@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      No no no, we need to dig down to the magma to release the pressure!

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    • Silic0n_Alph4@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Time to invest in concrete companies. The demand is going to be HUGE!

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  • pete_the_cat@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    IIRC when Mount Saint Helens erupted in the 80s it blew the top half of the volcano off.

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    • the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Yeah and slightly off topic wasn’t the pic of Helens blowing its top taken by a man who knew in advance the explosion would kill him and protected his film? Am i thinking of the right story?

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So much awesome power in that eruption (with non-awesome human and nature/animal consequences).

      mountsthelens.com/history-1.html

      This article is a good play-by-play of how the eruption physically progressed, I particularly like this illustration.

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  • jballs@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    So you’re saying we need to cover Wyoming in cement. Gotcha.

    Seriously though, cool info!

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      So you’re saying we need to cover Wyoming in cement. Gotcha.

      I am sure if you sold it to Wyoming voters as a way to hurt trans people they would happily vote for it and drown themselves in a sea of concrete.

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  • FlihpFlorp@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Made me whip out my geology notes I took a few semesters ago, thanks for the fun explanation

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Hell yeah!

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  • Zacryon@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thank you, kind geology enthusiast.

    Really barely comprehensible how immense those volcanic activities are.

    On a side note, you’ve listed insane unit after insane unit of death and destruction. And then there is this sentence:

    There is evidence that it occurred on an autumn afternoon

    That was a cute turn and I laughed. :D

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  • Bombastic@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Lies spread by Big Volcano

    Wake up sheeple

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  • interolivary@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Ohhh, I had no idea there were different kinds of volcanoes but it does make sense in hindsight.

    Well, I guess this might have been covered in primary or secondary education at some point but it’s been about 3000 years since my last geography class

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      There is a wonderful diverse world of volcanic eruptions! One thing you might not have thought about is how glaciers often form at the top of large cone volcanoes and the way the lava erupting interacts with a large volume of ice can shape the eruption significantly. One of the biggest results are lahars, like muddy, liquidy avalanches but even faster and deadlier.

      One of the thing that links all volcanic eruptions and is a good orientation point for comparing between different eruptions and volcanoes is that all magma pretty much comes up from the mantle to the near surface starting at the same chemical composition. If the magma feeds into large underground chambers (batholiths) and is allowed to cool slowly then certain minerals will begin to form and precipitate out like snow that layers up on the bottom of the chamber. What minerals these are depends on how long, how hot, how much pressure, but you can vaguely think of it as a process of distillation where magma progresses from the original “mafic” composition to a “felsic” one as the high temperature mafic minerals crystallize leaving behind the felsic magma mixture.

      This is a graph of Viscosity, the more Viscous the Magma the less ability it has to flow like a liquid (and thus the more likely a plug is likely to form inside a volcano). Image

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  • Rinox@feddit.it ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Except Vesuvius, which looks like a volcano, but in 79CE erupted violently sending lave, magma and molten rocks several kilometers away, exactly like the stuffy nose you described. It completely destroyed Pompeii and Herculaneum, burying them for thousands of years.

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    Still nothing when compared to the destruction that the “Campi Flegrei” brought 37’000 years ago, completely burying a huge section of the Campanian coastline.

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Super cool!!

      Aain I love how it looks like a drunk geologist made a scribble on a map and said before passing out “that Campi Flegrei, that’s a BIG one right there!” and you are just left looking at the map being like… what… are you sure that just looks like you randomly circled a huge part of the landscape…?

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  • Nindelofocho@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Thank you that was super informative. Is there anything that can be done to mitigate an impending eruption? Ive always heard that if one of the big super volcanoes goes it could be quite catastrophic for the entire world. Surely theres been some research into like pressure relief holes or something…antacid tabs?

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Surely theres been some research into like pressure relief holes or something…antacid tabs?

      I am sure there are lots of geologists who have thought of it, it makes sense right?

      The problem is that nobody gives a shit about listening to geologists unless they are talking about where to find oil. Even if a geoengineering project of this scale and magnitude (with such catastrophic consequences if it goes wrong) where possible with near current geological science and hardware this degree of interest and investment of society is only ever committed to visions techbros provide and I don’t think a single techbro has ever taken a geology class and actually remotely paid attention.

      It was geologists in the 1970s who first pointed out the obvious connection between human released CO2 emissions and global warming. Nobody gave a shit :)

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• JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  “Success! We have plugged the volcano!”

  two days later

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  • slurpyslop@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    didnt use enough cement

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    • interolivary@beehaw.org ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Definitely! I find that most problems in life can be solved with cement; if it didn’t solve your problem, you just didn’t use enough of it.

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  • sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Where is this from?? Is this AI?

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    • xthexder@l.sw0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      I believe that’s Mt St Helens erupting. Real footage from 1980 (though this gif is sped up).

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    • JoMiran@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Mt. St. Helen’s eruption, 1980. I remember this form when I was a kid. I couldn’t wrap my head around a mountain exploding then, and I still can’t.

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    • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Where is this from?? Is this AI?

      At this point in Earth’s timeline (1980) AI had not yet gained control of Earth’s volcanoes through a projection network of 80s music into the asthenosphere.

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• Trainguyrom@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This requires a lot of concrete. A more economical solution would be to just move the volcano elsewhere. Plus then you can sell all of the new real estate where the volcano once stood!

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  • dmalteseknight@programming.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Given the state of the world, those volcanoes are probably already owned by foreign investors to use as land banks.

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  • SkyezOpen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Meanwhile Ethiopians are dodging lava from 3 simultaneous volcanoes erupting.

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  • huquad@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You’re missing the bigger picture. Move the volcano to the ocean. Then bit by bit you get some land that you can sell later when you want to retire. Kind of like the plot to that super man movie.

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• someguy3@lemmy.ca ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Now we have lava and a cement projectile!

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  • disguy_ovahea@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s a shame we can’t grow a large enough potato.

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    • holycrap@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Not with that attitude

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  • Rolando@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Hold on a sec… what if just aim the volcano at our enemies?

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    • the_post_of_tom_joad@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Putting a gun barrel on the top of our volcanoes and just randomly waving it around at other countries lol i love it

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    • lightnsfw@reddthat.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Works okay in Dwarf Fortress.

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• Zerush@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Good idea, also applicable in other areas

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  • affiliate@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    unfortunately this would only work on tanks that shoot lava

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    • MonkeMischief@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      “Tank division here! We’ve fired everything we’ve got at the lava!..Now what?”

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• mozz@mbin.grits.dev ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  I like how the diagram contains an illustration of one of the flaws in the plan

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• nondescripthandle@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Wanna know my pet peve? I just know whoever honestly asked that question did zero research at all about it but instead of asking if anyone has ever done it they ask why no on ever has, even though I just know they didn’t so much as google it once.

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  • Blackmist@feddit.uk ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s the same people who post “what time does big Tesco shut?” on Facebook.

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    • Chadus_Maximus@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      What time does Yellowstone erupt tho?

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• Nobody@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If you put concrete over the volcano, how are you going to throw virgins in as a sacrifice to the volcano god? Just asking for trouble here.

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  • letsgo@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Just leave a virgin-shaped hole in the middle of the concrete block. It won’t change the efficacy of the concrete due to the magma wavelength being so much greater than the hole diameter (the mesh screen on a microwave principal).

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    • BobbyNevada@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      This hole was meant for me!

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• RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Just put up some “no eruption” signs.

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  • ladicius@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    That’d be about as ridiculous as the proposal that is being dismissed into oblivion in this thread but at least economically and technically feasible.

    Three or four signs should suffice.

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  • ivanafterall@kbin.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    The sign won't do much good without force of law. We need legislation outlawing these eruptions.

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    • RamblingPanda@lemmynsfw.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      That goes without saying. We need to regulate volcanic burp strength, ejaculation mass and toxic fumes. Pyroclastic flows as well.

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• joel1974@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Put a really big wooden spoon over the mouth of the volcano

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  • Obi@sopuli.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Smart to go for wooden, because then the handle won’t get hot!

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• Hedup@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Also fun fact - you can make a gun ineffective and safe just by welding shut its barel.

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  • Transporter_Room_3@startrek.website ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Ineffective, definitely.

    Safe for the target, also maybe. Just depends on whether the exploding action and barrel throw shrapnel down range, or if you had a shitty weld. Guy holding it won’t have a good day, but could survive. Something something Kentucky ballistics.

    Idk man, this plan is sounding pretty credible.

    Wait, wrong community…

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    • urfavlaura@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      yeah a pretty credible way to defend yourself against your target

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    • philpo@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Read somewhere in an book that sometimes soldiers/aides tried to hurt/kill their officers my minimally reducing their barrel width mechanically when cleaning their pistols for them. Hard to detect and can fuck someone up good.

      But while I can see how that would work in theory I don’t see how this could be done without someone noticing it and with the tools at their disposal.

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  • the_joeba@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    You can just plug it with your finger, unless you’re going to tell me that cartoons are lying.

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• Holzkohlen@feddit.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Just pump out the magma til it’s empty and use it to heat homes. Win win

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  • NeatNit@discuss.tchncs.de ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I’m absolutely sure this wouldn’t work but I need to know why it wouldn’t work

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    • ouRKaoS@lemmy.today ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Simple. What are you going to pump it with? If you have something you can contain magma in to pump it around, why not just build everything out of that and not worry about the magma anymore?

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• archon@sh.itjust.works ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  For a small scale demonstration, OOP should try chugging a bottle of laxatives, insert a buttplug, and see how it goes.

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  • Taleya@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    I was gonna ref the coke and mentos challenge but your suggestion has a much higher hilarity factor

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    • trolololol@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Porque no los dos?

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• ZMoney@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This is literally what happens when a volcano erupts. Magma solidifes at the top and creates a plug, which builds pressure until it explodes.

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  • Prethoryn@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Dude, you are going to break this person’s heart. Keep this knowledge to yourself.

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    • Anamnesis@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Bobby, if these kids could understand volcanic geology, they’d be very upset right now.

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• KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  cement: mostly not rocks and mortar mix or whatever the fuck concrete: mostly rocks, mortar mix, and significantly stronger than cement. lava: literally actually just fucking molten rock also lava: buried thousands of feet deeper below millions, possibly billions of pounds of more rock concrete: weights about the same

  shitposting aside this would just spray incredibly small chunks of solidified lava everywhere, for miles.

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  • EvacuateSoul@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Cement is the chemical that cements. Mix it with sand and you get mortar, add aggregate and you get concrete. Concrete is not only made with cement, if you swap it for bitumen, you get asphalt.

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      there we go. This is someone that cements.

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  • psud@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    It’s like expecting the pipe of a pipe bomb to contain the explosion

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    • Somethingcheezie@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Build a bigger pipe. Concrete on the out side of the mountains. Lots of it

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      i mean, it does contain it, so uh.

      It just won’t contain it forever.

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  • beebarfbadger@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Okay, but what if you push it down with both your hands? Lava couldn’t get out then. Checkmate.

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    • KillingTimeItself@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      damn, you got me there.

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• MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Oh I get it! If you stack rock on the hot rock, you can stop the hot rock from moving the rock with more rock!

  … Unironically, this DOES work … sorta’. Though it’d be dumb to do by man, because a ‘rock plug’ is exactly what forms at the top of many volcanos after the magma cools. It’s why many volcanos have flank eruptions where magma pushes through some side crack, or build and build until the rock plug pops catastrophically.

  Of course some volcanos don’t have the right mix to form rock plugs, and any non-dormant volcano can pop them, but the point is it does have an effect that can delay and redirect eruptions.

  If humanity doesn’t kill itself off soon (bad news on that front), I wouldn’t be surprised if one day we’re building megastructures around volcanos specifically to manage them instead of being subject to them.

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  • fossilesque@mander.xyz ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

    Haha, that’s pretty cool. Is there anything written about this?

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    • MotoAsh@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

      Absolutely TONS of info, though I’m not a geologist, nor have I studied much, so I sadly do not know of any solid references I could simply point at. I’ve just picked up a few details over the years watching random geology videos on YouTube.

      GeologyHub makes frequent short videos on current activity, and he always comments on the mechanisms at play, and even makes and explains his educated guesses on what will happen. A plug forming comes up quite often when eruptions slow, even in eruptions that are destined to continue erupting.

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• maculata@aussie.zone ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  This is a sad and unfunny attempt to distract the damage done to good people on both sides of a volcano.

  The real solution is to present the map of potential impact, and then draw on it with a Sharpie to change the outcome.

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• frezik@midwest.social ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Brilliant! Sign this $1B invoice and I’ll setup a team to start on it.

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• Zacryon@lemmy.wtf ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Did she ever pop a pimple? Volcanoes build up an insane amount of pressure.

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• pineapplelover@lemm.ee ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If we put enough corn kernels it would fill up the volcano with popcorn and it will just shoot popcorn all over the tri state area 🧠

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• owenfromcanada@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Volcano erupting? Just tell it to stop. It legally can’t erupt without your permission.

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• booty@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  congratulations: you have made a new volcano in a location much more difficult to predict

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• Fedizen@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  why not like pour water on the volcano, my dude

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• dragnucs@lemmy.ml ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  If pressure builds up we won’t riaj anything because the cemenbt would just be propoulksed in the outter space and not hurt anyone.

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• set_secret@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Hmmmm. Looks like making there worlds biggest canon has zero downsides imho.

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• tektite@slrpnk.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  When Kilauea was making news for erupting, I showed my (now ex) partner a photo of the lava flow over the road with hazard barriers to keep people away.

  Her response was to ask why they didn’t just divert the flow away from where people are.

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• TankieTanuki@hexbear.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Duc(k/t) tape is cheaper

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• RunawayFixer@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Why has noone ever experimented with placing a very large spaceship in the mouth of an active volcano? And when erupting, the space ship would fly to space without needing any fuel. No resources wasted on multiple stage rockets just to carry up fuel a few km, all that’s needed is an enormous spaceship in the shape of a cement plug.

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• Kolanaki@yiffit.net ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Big badda boom

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• BilboBargains@lemmy.world ⁨1⁩ ⁨year⁩ ago

  Prevent harmful eruptions with one simple trick. Frees up more time for your other hobbies, like making pipe bombs.

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