If we were to purposely drill holes in volcanos to let the pressure out, would that prevent eruptions?

Question

but, wouldn't the eruption be smaller and more controlled? Also, you would know its happening, so there wouldn't be so many casualties. I would rather vent it when its small than to wait until it explodes and takes out a city killing hundreds....

Answer 1

How big a hole do you propose to drill?
Do you want to be operating the rig when it hits magma?

Answer 2

Actually it wouldn't help prevent eruptions. The ground under a volcano is a lava so to drill in there you would probably just drill into lava. Plus, if you drill in there it would just be like a pin prick and wouldn't really do anything so no I am pretty sure it would not prevent an eruption. I mean if it was that easy geologists would be out there doing it already.

Answer 3

While it could be used to manually erupt a volcanoe ofter a city has been evacuated, the pressure that is built up in the volcano is the lava itself so an eruption afterwards is pretty much inevitable

Answer 4

I understand what your saying, and a can of coke is not similar. A soda can is full to the brim, a volcano isn't. But I think if there is a big gaping hole at the top, just adding a few holes wont make a difference

Answer 5

First, keep in mind that a volcano, any volcano, is a huge and very complex system. There are a great many different factors that determine the type of volcanic eruption that occurs, but the most important appears to be the chemical makeup of the magma in the volcano's magma chamber. In the case of volcanoes like Kilau'ea and Maun'a Loa on Hawaii, the chemistry of the magma is considered "basic" or somewhat alkali. This means that the magma will be less viscous or sticky, more fluid, and will allow gases trapped in it to escape more easily. In the case of volcanoes like Mt. St Helens in the US, or Merapi in Indonesia, the magma which works it's way up through the volcanoes conduit has to melt through continental rocks that are primarily made of of granite, which contains a lot of silica (quartz). The chemical makeup of these rocks is more acidic, and this tends to make the lava that is erupted more thick, sticky, and viscous, and doesn't allow for trapped gases to escape easily. That's why in the case of St. Helens and other subduction zone volcanoes (a subduction zone is where one of the Earth's crustal plates is being forced down beneath another) that their eruptions tend to be much more explosive and destructive.

Tapping into a volcano on a large scale is probably not very feasible. In the case of a St Helens, it would probably be a very dangerous venture as the stresses on these mountains makes them incredibly unstable, and any release of pressure could be likely be very explosive or cause a collapse of the lava dome, and the effect of such drilling on releasing the vast pressures within the system as a whole would likely be negligible. For a more effusive, Hawaiian-type eruption, the problem would be the temperature of the lava's involved, which can easily top 2,000 degrees fahrenheit., and keeping the pipes clear and free flowing would be exceedingly difficult. There was a case of a drilling team at a geothermal field in Iceland accidentally tapping into the still molten core of an older lava flow. In that case there was sufficient pressure to force lava up the pipes leading to the geothermal power plant, abrading right through the pipe and erupting onto the surface in a pile of glassy debris. The "mini-eruption" damaged equipment but little else, but is said that the noise of superheated steam from the lava coming out through the burst pipe was "deafening".

Lava flows are, by and large, the least dangerous threats to humans from volcanoes. It's true that they can be incredibly destructive to property, but generally they move slow enough to get out of their way in time. An exception to this are a couple of volcanoes in central Africa named Nyiragongo and Nyamuragira. Both produce lavas that are remarkably fluid and fast moving and are a very real threat to the local populace. A fissure eruption on the lower flanks of Nyiragongo of very fluid lava in January of 2002 killed 45 people and made another 12,000 families homeless, and another similar eruption in January of 1977 killed an estimated 70 - 200 people and a herd of elephants with fast-moving flows.

The most dangerous volcanic effect is a "pyroclastic flow"; a combination avalanche/landslide of volcanic rocks, ash, and cinders caught up in a hurricane-force wind of hot, poisonous gases burning at temperatures of nearly at 1,000 degrees. Pyroclastic flows can move down a volcano's slopes at speeds ranging from 60 miles per hour in the case of a lava dome collapse, to over 400 mph in the event of the collapse of the eruption column itself, and pyroclastic flows can travel long distances from the volcano itself. Very little can survive the onslaught of a pyroclastic flow; most everything in it's path usually gets blasted to bits, incinerated, then buried in burning hot debris. A large pyroclastic flow from the volcano Mt. Pelee on the Carribean island of Martinique killed some 29,000 people in a matter of minutes in May of 1902.

N.

Answer 6

It will prevent eruption temporarily. The problem is that once the lava temperature falls, it hardens and seals the hole again. Later on, the pressure will build up again, and so on and so on.

Answer 7

It would prevent explosive ones but would make it really, really easy for the ones that leak lava to come out. And if you did it too late, you would cause an eruption.

Answer 8

no actually it would make them happen alot faster than it would originaly come flowing out becauseit is letting pressure off, therefore it would NOT pevent eruptions

Answer 9

Maybe if you did it purposefully, I can't see a technical flaw at first glance. However, I'm sure that it's been tried, or that there are compelling reasons why it has not and should not be tried

Answer 10

it would creat one, volcaones are constantly under pressure that builds up until it is too much and it explodes