{"id":6949,"date":"2017-11-27T09:59:41","date_gmt":"2017-11-27T09:59:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ounews.co\/?p=6949"},"modified":"2017-11-27T09:59:41","modified_gmt":"2017-11-27T09:59:41","slug":"bali-volcano-expert-comment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/science-mct\/science-environment\/bali-volcano-expert-comment\/","title":{"rendered":"Bali volcano: expert comment"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_6310\" style=\"width: 210px\" class=\"wp-caption alignright\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-6310\" class=\"wp-image-6310 size-full\" src=\"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Dave-Rothery-1.jpg\" alt=\"Dave Rothery volcano expert\" width=\"200\" height=\"240\" \/><p id=\"caption-attachment-6310\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Professor David Rothery<\/p><\/div>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/people\/dar4\">Professor David Rothery<\/a>, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, gives his expert view on the emerging situation in Bali, as <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/news\/world-asia-42132912\">Mount Agung threatens a major eruption<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe volcano Agung might at last be delivering the large eruption that has been feared for several weeks.\u00a0 Ash is rising to a height of about 30 thousand feet, and dispersing east and south taking it over Bali\u2019s international airport, which has had to be closed.\u00a0 Airborne ash is a serious hazard to aircraft.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe wisdom of the Indonesian authorities\u2019 decision to evacuate residents from around the foot of the volcano will be apparent if there is substantial ashfall or, worse, a collapse of an eruption column resulting in fast-moving pyroclastic flows.\u00a0 Airfall ash is a respiratory hazard, kills crops, and makes roofs collapse, and can turn into devastating mudflows (lahars) as soon as it rains.\u00a0 Pyroclastic flows are hot and deadly.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cMost of the volcanoes in Indonesia, including Bali, are there because the ocean floor of the Indian-Australian tectonic plate is being pushed below (subducted) the plate carrying Indonesia.\u00a0 This is the process that causes the earthquakes in the region.\u00a0 Most of the magma that feeds the volcanoes is produced because the seawater that is carried down by the subducting plate escapes and lowers the melting temperature of the rock below the islands.\u00a0 Molten rock, rich in steam and other gases, which is what we call magma, then rises upwards to feed the volcanoes.\u00a0 If the gas escapes quietly, there is not much of a problem.\u00a0 If it escapes violently, then we have an explosive eruption, which is what is feared in this case.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Professor David Rothery, Professor of Planetary Geosciences, gives his expert view on the emerging situation in Bali, as Mount Agung threatens a major eruption: \u201cThe volcano Agung might at last be delivering the large eruption that has been feared for several weeks.\u00a0 Ash is rising to a height of about 30 thousand feet, and dispersing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":6950,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"gallery","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[30],"tags":[1794,2374],"class_list":["post-6949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-gallery","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-environment","tag-professor-david-rothery","tag-volcano","post_format-post-format-gallery"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.open.ac.uk\/blogs\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}