To all the residents in the village of Boomsdale, recently Dr. Bigbrain with the United States Geological Survey (USGS) has detected small earthquakes coming from Mt. Thunder. For those of you that do not yet know, Mt. Thunder is an active stratovolcano and these earthquakes could be related to an impending volcanic eruption. There are three types of volcanos which include: shield volcanos, scoria cone volcanos, and stratovolcanoes. Unfortunately, stratovolcanoes are the most dangerous, explosive, and deadly volcanoes. The reason for stratovolcano’s explosive tendency is because of the type of magma contained in the volcano’s magma chamber located underground beneath Mt. Thunder. The type of magma contained in the magma chamber is on average andesite. Andesite is a very thick magma that is capable of being very explosive. Imagine boiling pasta sauce and how it bubbles, andesite is similar.
Events That Can Be Expected
Unfortunately, because your …show more content…
Thunder erupts is a lahar. A lahar is a mudflow with a temperature of about 100℃ that is produced when an erupting volcano melts the ice at the peak of the volcano. When this happens the lahar will travel down valleys at tens of kilometers per hour moving like wet concrete. If stuck in a lahar it is almost impossible to get out which is why most people die of suffocation. In 1985 a lahar swept through Armero killing 22,000 people.
The third event that can be expected when Mt. Thunder erupts is a pyroclastic flow. Pyroclastic flows are created when tephra fragments and volcanic gas flows down valleys on the flanks of volcanos. Pyroclastic flows are composed of extremely hot fluidized mixture of gas and rocky fragments that typically move faster than 100 miles per hour. These are the most deadly of all volcanic phenomena which can be seen when looking at the devastation a pyroclastic flow caused when it killed 28,000 people in the city of Saint-Pierre.
Safety