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Author Topic: Japan’s Sakurajima volcano awakes with a series of powerful explosions  (Read 7366 times)

Offline zorgon

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Japan’s Sakurajima volcano awakes with a series of powerful explosions
Posted on June 14, 2013




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June 13, 2013 – JAPAN – After 10 days of almost no activity, the volcano has woken up violently with 3 powerful explosions last night (at 22:05 and 23:58 UTC, ash plumes to 10-13,000 ft) and this morning at 04:26. The eruption this morning appears to be one of the largest explosions for a long time, producing an ash plume rising to 16-20,000 ft (5-6 km) altitude. An SO2 plume is also visible on satellite data. Tokyo VAAC issued a warning of an ash plume drifting SE at flight level 200 (20,000 ft altitude), s. graphic. –Volcano Discovery

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Offline zorgon

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« Last Edit: June 14, 2013, 02:33:45 am by zorgon »

Offline zorgon

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Image Credit & Copyright: Martin Rietze (Alien Landscapes on Planet Earth)

Sakurajima Volcano with Lightning

Explanation: Why does a volcanic eruption sometimes create lightning? Pictured above, the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan was caught erupting in early January. Magma bubbles so hot they glow shoot away as liquid rock bursts through the Earth's surface from below. The above image is particularly notable, however, for the lightning bolts caught near the volcano's summit. Why lightning occurs even in common thunderstorms remains a topic of research, and the cause of volcanic lightning is even less clear. Surely, lightning bolts help quench areas of opposite but separated electric charges. One hypothesis holds that catapulting magma bubbles or volcanic ash are themselves electrically charged, and by their motion create these separated areas. Other volcanic lightning episodes may be facilitated by charge-inducing collisions in volcanic dust. Lightning is usually occurring somewhere on Earth, typically over 40 times each second.


http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130311.html

Offline zorgon

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Offline petrus4

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Lightning is due to the friction or static electricity, caused by a collision of sufficiently differing hot and cold air currents; a certain amount of humidity or moisture in the air seems to be necessary as well, as would be a particular level of barometric pressure. 

I can virtually always tell some hours in advance, when we are going to have a lightning storm; the requisite conditions are familiar, and consistent.  It is almost always at the end of a period when we have had several warm or hot days, and are about to transition into another period of several colder ones.  The two different temperatures collide with each other; the one departing, and the other incoming.

My guess is that the cause of lightning by volcano would be similar; the ejection of sufficiently heated material into the air, would collide with cold air currents, and the resistance between the two produces the electricity.  Another guess is that the path of the lightning, perhaps illustrates those specific areas where the temperature difference is greatest.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2013, 02:50:16 am by petrus4 »
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Offline zorgon

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Free Energy :P

Offline petrus4

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Free Energy :P

Not in that form, Zorgon; and even if you could synthesise it, it would be sufficiently fiddly to do that it would not end up being free, by any means.  You would need to simulate the correct environment, in temperature terms; and doing so would in itself require energy.
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Offline robomont

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zorgon i would give you gold if you werent already king.those pics are awesome.

petrus beat me to it.my guess cloud to ground.what is strange is the highest energy source is the volcano so it should be ground to cloud.or ground to ground in which case there would not be no lightning.maybe the ash is an insulating barrier and the lightning occurs because of the large insulator.i pride myself on hv dc but this has got me kinda stumped.ive seen this kinda lightning in the past but just never thought about it.

on a radio tower when lightning is about to strike .the air buzzes or sizzles.thats when we get inside the structure and strap off.faraday cage basically.ive road out a storm one time but tower didnt get hit.my brother was on one that did and he told me about the sizzling noise.of corse hair stands on end also before the strike
ive never been much for rules.
being me has its priviledges.

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deuem

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I wonder how many nuke plants they had on that mountain. They do seem to put them in harms way. I hope we don't read about that next. Please...

Offline zorgon

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petrus beat me to it.my guess cloud to ground.what is strange is the highest energy source is the volcano so it should be ground to cloud.or ground to ground in which case there would not be no lightning.

Aww come on robo...

...we ALL know that it was HARRP energy zapping the volcano to make it erupt. :P  I think I will write the NAVY and ask them if they can tune HARRP to heat my coffee

 ::)

Offline petrus4

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zorgon i would give you gold if you werent already king.those pics are awesome.

petrus beat me to it.my guess cloud to ground.what is strange is the highest energy source is the volcano so it should be ground to cloud.

I will admit that I know virtually nothing about grounding in that sense; which is why I had simply assumed that the reason why the lightning was originating in the air, was because the volcano was ejecting hot material up to the altitude where the lightning was observed, and the reaction which produced the lightning, took place at that point.

We can say that the volcano is the highest source of energy in the area, so far as it is the greatest producer of motive force, or work.  (That is, the force required to push the hot material into the air)

I think, however, that we are dealing with something a little different; in the sense that at a sufficiently gross or macroscopic level, is a difference between kinetic and thermal energy.  It is kinetic energy (pressure; which granted, to an extent is produced by the heat, which is part of what makes the distinction difficult) which pushes the hot material up into the air, but it is thermal energy (or rather, the reaction between thermal energy in two different conditions; one yin/inert/negatively polarised, or cold, and the other yang/active/positively polarised, or hot) which produces the lightning.

Although, again, I am ignorant of how grounding works, I will assume that what you are saying, is that it is inexplicable as to why there is a localised effect.  In other words, why we are seeing lightning at the specific points where we are, particularly given that as you say, most of the energy is still inside the volcano, which is below the area of the lightning.

I do not know enough about how electricity works to be able to speculate.  I had guessed that the lightning was generated at the point of the greatest difference in air temperature, as mentioned; but it is probably true that without some kind of physical conductor or restraints, the electricity has no real reason that we can tell, for following or staying at the paths shown by the lightning, rather than just dissipating into the surrounding air.  There must be something which holds it in place.
« Last Edit: June 14, 2013, 06:07:15 pm by petrus4 »
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Offline The Matrix Traveller

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Lightning is due to the friction or static electricity, caused by a collision of sufficiently differing hot and cold air currents; a certain amount of humidity or moisture in the air seems to be necessary as well, as would be a particular level of barometric pressure.

One of the reasons is found in voltage polarisation due to temperature differential.

The hotter area repels (-) charge to the colder areas, so the hotter end,
becomes (+) and the colder (-) with respect to each other.

Remember this experiment in secondary school ?




It is also, the theory involved in 'thermocouples' we use today, but at lower voltages.


The other reason is because 'magma' is charged (+) compared to our atmosphere.

The theoretical potential differential across the theoretical crust of the earth,
is estimated to be about 600,000 volts. (Varies)

The earth is a bit like a spherical capacitor.

We often see Ionization occurring, prior to eruptions and earthquakes.
(Visually as coloured clouds etc.)

 


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