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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."
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.
They've got a lot of balls, trying something like that.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
I'm sure you can find plenty here *looks around nervously*
Monstar L
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
As one of the physicists said "The mud will find another way out". Maybe if they plug the hole, enough pressure will build up to cause a real eruption.
These events happen for a reason. It's the planet's way of staying in balance.
Ever have a bottle of soda suddenly start spraying? How well does sticking your thumb over the nozzle help?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
They want to drop concrete balls into it? Do you take concrete balls when you have an upset stomach? Me neither. What they need is a dump truck full of Tums and a concrete mixer full of Mylanta. If that doesn't work you can always use a virgin. But concrete balls? These "scientists" need to get a real scientist--a witch doctor. They're witches and they're doctors. That's a lot of school. And if they can't fix it you can just throw them in there and save your concrete balls for outside a library or something.
Swi
Teabagging a volcano...
Sounds like a good way to turn a shield volcano into a stratovolcano.
The milk jug analogy is flawed. With holes in the bottom of a milk jug, it's just gravity that lets the water pour out under the force of its own weight, so yes, plugging one hole, or plugging the hole halfway, reduces the rate of flow and doesn't change the pressure -- because there's no pressure in the first place.
Hook up a garden hose to the milk jug and then try it, though, and you've got an entirely different situation. Now you can turn the jug _over_, so that the holes are on the top, and you'll still get water squirting out, just like mud flowing *up* out of a volcano, against gravity. Plug one of the holes in the jug then, and you will indeed get more flow out the other hole.
If the article accurately describes their strategy, they're only going to make matters worse, not better.
Cut that out, or I will ship you to Norilsk in a box.
Chuck Norris's balls.
I don't know why I said that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
The opposing viewpoint shown in the article reminds me of the 6th networking truth:
"It is easier to move a problem around (for example, by moving the problem to a different part of the overall network architecture) than it is to solve it." --RFC1925
X(7): A program for managing terminal windows. See also screen(1).
Ok, I'll bite. The oil company drilled a borehole next to the volcano. When the borehole exploded it provided a vent for the mud to flow out of. According to This site the oil company was not following standard operating procedure designed to minimize the risk of this kind of event.
Inventions have long since reached their limit, and I see no hope for further development.-- Frontinus, 1st cent. AD
Aren't we missing the most obvious solution here?
We are geeks after all. And we know what will calm a volcano.
V I R G I N S
O.K., I need 3 Linux nerds, and 3 Linux nerdettes (come on, you know, you mention Linux at a party, you ain't getting laid).
Volunteers?
Free trip to Indonesia.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
would be to explode a deeply placed high explosive device, in the range of kilotons.
Except for that tedious problem of obtaining, placing and detonating a few thousand tons of HE in the right spot deep down inside a mud volcano that is busily spewing mud upwards.
But that's just a minor engineering problem, isn't it?
You are in a twisty maze of processor lines, all alike.
There is a lot of hype here.
It is a situation that has a lot in common with the levee breaches in NO after Katrina. In NO, initial attempts to repair the levee breaches by transporting large, heavy blocks into the breaches were unsuccessful as the breaches were just too large and the blocks were swept away. I expect the big ball method described in TFA to have as little effect as the big block method did in NO. It was only when the water levels equalized in NO that the corps were able to finally seal off the breaches.
It seems to me that your method of using explosives to fix the problem would do nothing to help and would probably only widen the breach in the clay layer, much as using explosives would not have helped in NO. Using explosives in the mud bearing layer is impractical (beyond just getting the into place as another poster noted) as the mud bearing layer is too thick to be obstructed in this manner. Using explosives in the clay layer would only widen the breach. Using explosives above the clay layer would do nothingf as the pressure is already high enough to work it's way to the surface once it is through the clay layer.
The only means of resealing the breach as I see it would be to drill through the clay layer (using liners to protect the clay from erosion) and then inject cement in large enough quantities to cause a plug to be formed below the clay. I have no idea if it is feasible as I do not know how large the breach has become and how much cement could be pumped in before being swept away.
The "experiment" described in TFA where the debit was halved by plugging one out of two holes in a bottle is false as there is only one hole at present. Even if they achieve their goal of dumping the balls so that they settle on the clay layer, the mudflow will just erode around them and create a yet larger breach as nothing in the plan allows for the erosion of the mud layer.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
This is were Bruce Willis comes in.