![]() ![]() ![]() Continuing movement will shift the big island to the northwest and a new volcano will emerge to its southeast. Each volcano erupted in turn for about 1 million years before becoming inactive and sinking below sea level and being carried along on top of the Pacific plate. As the Pacific plate moves northwest over this hot spot and the volcanic centers it produces, a line of individual seafloor volcanoes (seamounts) to form the Hawaii-Emperor seamount chain that can be traced from the big island to the Aleutians. “Mauna Loa is just one volcanic center that formed about a ‘hot spot’ of rising, hot, solid mantle material that protrudes upward the Earth’s surface. The bad news is that larger, more explosive volcanoes erupt less frequently so that we tend to forget about how dangerous they can be. The good news is that basaltic eruptions in places like Hawaii are frequent and not very explosive. Far more dangerous are the large explosive volcanoes of the Pacific rim (Ring of Fire) that occur above subduction zones where ocean lithosphere is shoved back down into the Earth’s interior, or continental calderas, like Yellowstone. “Small eruptions like these incrementally build up giant volcanic masses like the big island of Hawaii or Iceland or other ocean islands. There can be some fire fountaining (lava sprayed upward on the order of 100m) but it will most likely be just lava flows as seen in the 2018 Kilauea eruption or last summer’s Iceland eruption. This is the same type of lava that we experiment with in the Syracuse University Lava Project. Eruptions that form shield volcanoes are generally small flows of basalt, the most common volcanic rock on Earth (and in the solar system). But regardless of its size, it is not the most dangerous volcano. It is 4,000 m above sea level but there is an additional 6,000 m below sea level, in this deep part of the Pacific Ocean, but also in part because it is so heavy that it has depressed the underlying seafloor, like placing a bowling ball on a mattress. “Mauna Loa is by far the biggest volcanic mountain on Earth. He provides detailed information and commentary below about the Mauna Loa volcano and the latest eruption, which you are welcome to quote. Karson has spoken with dozens of news outlets about volcanic eruptions and lava flow including The Washington Post, NPR’s Science Friday and. Professor Karson is one of the directors of the Syracuse Lava Project, which allows geologists to create and experiment with 2200☏ lab-created lava in a massive outdoor furnace. Jeffrey Karson is Professor Emeritus of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Syracuse University and extensively researches lava flow and interaction with various materials. ![]()
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