Scientists Attempt To Calm Volcano

An anonymous reader writes "Since May 2006, a mud volcano in Indonesia has spewed out up to 126,000 cubic metres of mud a day, flooding an area of more than 4 square kilometres. This unprecedented natural disaster has become so bad that geophysicists now plan to enact an untested scheme to try and slow the flow: dropping concrete balls into the volcano."

Comments

Re:That should work just fine

[neax]

what? untested...? This might be the equivalent of throwing ice-cubes into a vat of hot oil...

Re:It'll never work

[sumdumass]

Well, They are basicly dropping Tums and mylanta into it. The active ingredients of Tums involve calcium carbonate. One of the active ingredients of Mylanta is Aluminum Hydroxide. Note the core elements are calcium and aluminum. The compounds allow them to be digested and used easily in the body.

The chemical make up of concrete (portland cement mainly) is mostly

1. Tricalcium silicate
2. Dicalcium silicate
3. Tricalcium aluminate
4. Tetracalcium aluminoferrite
5. Gypsum

Notice that these are all compounds of calcium and aluminum. I asume the heated water will help disolve them.

pfft, we have just solve this problem. Give us another challenge ;)

Strange how close you are. The witch doctor might add some value too. Maybe they can start a cultist religion surounding the "apeasing the volcano god" and use the funds from the colection plate to pay for the balls. Once a month the witch doctor could say the volcano god said supply it with Tums or it will cause destruction just before the colection plate is passed around.

A more practical solution

[Alien54]

would be to explode a deeply placed high explosive device, in the range of kilotons. The idea is to breakup the the flow channels, and let it collapse on itself and clog itself up. The explosive does not have to be nuclear, but it needs to be both large and deeply located. Correct placement would help as well.

Re:Free markets are always

[sporkme]

The drilling company is owned by members of their government.
From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sidoarjo_mud_flow:

The drilling company Lapindo Brantas was a subsidiary owned by PT Energi Mega Persada Tbk, in turn 60% owned and controlled by the Bakrie Group. [9] The Bakrie Group is owned by the Coordinating Minister for the People's Welfare Aburizal Bakrie and his brothers[10]. Lapindo Brantas has taken over the initial responsibility and costs caring for the mitigation of the effects of the mud flow. It indicated to have set aside $ 140 million of which half had been used by September.[10] While officially not running the family business since joining the cabinet, A. Bakrie received protests by environmentalists in view of the damage done by his family's company. [11]

Yeah, government controls sure could have helped in this case. If their government had more control, they would probably claim to have been drilling for mud. Behold, the glorious mud harvest of the patriotic people of our great land! Surely all can see that the mud has proven to be most beneficial to the "People's Welfare!"

Re:Almost right...

[phayes]

Your percolator analogy still has little to do with the mud volcano's processes. The percolator works because the water vapour bubbles upwards and induces motion in the surrounding liquid. By bringing the heat into the process you're only confusing the issue as dissolved gasses have very little to do with it.

Instead of using a percolator, imagine a waterbed covered with books. The water in the bed is the mud layer, the membrane containing the water is the clay layer, and the books represent the earth above the clay. Once the membrane containing the water is pierced, the weight of the books forces the water out much as the weight of the earth is now forcing the water out of the bed. Now imagine that the water in the bed erodes the hole once it has been made making the problem worse.

To stop a percolator, turn off the heat. To fix a leaky waterbed, you need to patch the liner or wait until all the water drains out.