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How big was the Tonga eruption?

graphics.reuters.com

41–50 of 269 posts

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#41
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could make your point without being derisive and ableist, especially considering the people involved have credentials and are trained in their fields.

I'm assuming you meant to write ableist, in which case, how is the above comment ableist?

It's offensive to idiots.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#42
post #21
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could make your point without being derisive and ableist, especially considering the people involved have credentials and are trained in their fields.

But it creates "engagement" which is rewarded these days apparently. Also, I thought the trained people should have learned a thing or two from Pompei not to build near volcanoes. I'll cut some slack for the people who designed Pompei, they didn't know, but everyone after that should have learned.

What are the chances that the volcano erupts with a train on/near that portion of track? How often would you likely have to fix it? How much does it cost to go around? I am sure these questions are being asked and the risks being weighed. They may not be right and you might not agree with them but unless they did this without any forethought I would not call them dumb. Also you are comparing them to Pompei even though this is a train track not a city.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#43
post #18
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

you could make your point without being derisive and ableist, especially considering the people involved have credentials and are trained in their fields.

Hmm, the problem with the parent is that it's derisive and also just wrong, not that it is 'ableist'.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#44

Did the the ocean influence the ease of expansion of the explosion? Or hinder it? We are comparing an underwater explosion to one on land, and I'm wondering if it's directly comparable.

From what I've read it seems that the ocean exacerbated the explosion: the hot magma caused water to vaporize and created a steam explosion. I've read about a 70x volume expansion and that the top altitude of the plume was steam.

On the other hand, the ocean might have captured some of the ash (?)

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#45
post #17
post #8

For western US trained geoscientists, the Bishop Tuff [1] (from the ~750,000 years ago eruption of the Long Valley Caldera, near Mammoth Mtn. in California) is a "modern" comparable ashfall deposit. This was quite a bit larger (edited to add: I meant in areal extent, not necc. volume erupted). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Tuff

Quoted post unavailable.

This reasoning cannot lead to a practical policy directive. Volcanoes often lay dormant for thousands of years and their eruptions can deny huge amounts of land, which is not a reasonable tradeoff compared to "just rebuilding the railroad every 5000 years", since its service life is probably shorter than that anyway.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#46
post #8

For western US trained geoscientists, the Bishop Tuff [1] (from the ~750,000 years ago eruption of the Long Valley Caldera, near Mammoth Mtn. in California) is a "modern" comparable ashfall deposit. This was quite a bit larger (edited to add: I meant in areal extent, not necc. volume erupted). [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bishop_Tuff

I was vacationing in Mammoth one time and started reading about the geology... quite a shock to find that basically everything to the east is a giant caldera [1]. Also 760,000 years ago is really quite recent on geologic time scales.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long_Valley_Caldera

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#47

This looks like a tedious process that I would have totally done on my own had I thought of it. By that I mean the painstaking process of matting out each frame, then randomly placing it on places of the map, just because I could, just for the lulz. I'm not discounting it as "i could have thought of that", but appreciation for how useful it actually is. Some people cannot grasp certain things without visuals, and thi…

FWIW: * I think visuals are great for illumination overall, some people not withstanding :) * I think they also used semi-transparent shadow

Yes, they did use transparent shadows. You can tell because the images are not GIF's, they're actually a sequence of PNG images overlayed atop other PNG images. There's the base satellite image of the area, then the frames-of-explosion-with-transparency overlayed atop them. You can confirm this by right clicking on the image and choosing "open image in new tab", which will (usually) open this final frame in a new tab.

[0] - https://graphics.reuters.com/TONGA-VOLCANO/lgpdwjyqbvo/cdn/i...

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#48
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you could make your point without being derisive and ableist, especially considering the people involved have credentials and are trained in their fields.

I'm assuming you meant to write ableist, in which case, how is the above comment ableist?

edited, thank you.

To answer your question, adjectives related to intelligence are ableist in origin. I don't think this needs to be explained and it's not my job to educate you or anyone else on this forum.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#49
post #25

What I'm curious about is whether this was equivalent to, or larger than https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1883_eruption_of_Krakatoa Also whether it will turn the sky red for months.

I think if there was another Krakatoa, it would eclipse Covid in the news cycle for weeks.

Re: How big was the Tonga eruption?

#50
post #45
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quoted post unavailable.

This reasoning cannot lead to a practical policy directive. Volcanoes often lay dormant for thousands of years and their eruptions can deny huge amounts of land, which is not a reasonable tradeoff compared to "just rebuilding the railroad every 5000 years", since its service life is probably shorter than that anyway.

Maybe, but building a railroad invites towns and cities to be built around it.
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