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THE FIERY LAVA (Video Documentary Script)

Technical Report · September 2007

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 THE FIERY LAVA
(Video Documentary Script)

By
Prof. A. Balasubramanian
Centre for Advanced Studies in Earth Science,
University of Mysore,
Mysore

Forty four thousand earthquakes, 1500 volcanic eruptions, 170 impact craters, spreading
ocean floors and moving continental plates, all show the dynamics of the planet earth. Five
hundred and fifty active volcanoes are in eruption each year. Hundreds of earthquakes
strike the life. Massive Tsunamis devastate the settlements within a day.

Many spectacular and terrifying events are happening on earth, in nature, every day.

No one can guess, when it is going to come out, next, like a hot fountain.

It flows out like a hot molten rocky liquid and destroy everything on its way.

It explodes with smokes, dusts and molten stream into greater heights, with thundering
noise.

It is thrown up into the air from the earth’s interior. It comes out through the vertical pipe-
like openings on earth.

It is the flow of fiery lava which gets expelled during every volcanic eruption on the earth.

Volcanic eruptions are one of the earth’s most dramatic and violent agents of change.

Powerful and explosive eruptions can drastically alter land and water for several
kilometers around.

A lava is a molten rocky mass formed in the interior of some planets, including the Earth.

A volcanic vent is the pipe-like opening through which the lava gets erupted. When it
erupts from a vent, the liquid lava is at temperatures from 700 °C to 1,200 °C.

The composition of a lava determines its behavior more than the temperature of its
eruption.

When it has stopped moving, a lava solidifies to form the volcanic igneous rocks.

It is hundred thousand times more viscous than water. Yet it, a lava can flow to great
distances before cooling and solidifying because of its unique properties.

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Volcanism is refers to all the phenomena connected with the origin and movement of
magmatic molten rock.

Eruptions producing a mixture of volcanic ash and other rock fragments called tephra,
rather than lava flows, are called as explosive eruptions. The non-explosive eruption is
called as an effusive eruption. It produces only lava flow.

In addition to the lava, solid matter as rock fragments, ashes, and dusts, gas and steam may
all be thrown out simultaneously. These are called as pyroclastic materials.

Large chunks of rock masses get blasted out during an explosive eruption.
Tephra are pieces of magma that solidify as they fly through the air after being blown out
during an eruption.
They can become welded together on the surface to form a rock known as volcanic tuff.
Volcanic Ash are particles of less than 2 mm in diameter.
Cinders are particles of 2-64 mm in diameter.
Bombs are particles greater than 64 mm in diameter.
A volcanic Tuff is made mainly of bomb and cinder sized tephra.
All these materials are released during the blow-outs.

Magma contains dissolved gases that are released into the atmosphere during eruptions.
These are tiny acid droplets called as acid aerosols, compounds attached to tephra
particles, and microscopic salt particles.

The most abundant gas typically released from volcanic systems is water vapor, followed
by carbon-di-oxide, and sulphur-di-oxide. Some more gases are also released in smaller
amounts. These include, hydrogen sulphide, hydrogen, carbon monoxide, hydrogen
chloride, hydrogen fluoride, and helium. Some of them are responsible for potential health
hazards severe environmental impacts.

The Pyroclastic lava flows are mixtures of hot gas and ash that flow very rapidly down the
sides of a volcano. These flows are very deadly because they incinerate everything they
come in contact with, and they cannot be outrun.

A pyroclastic flow that occurred during eruption of Mt. Pelee on the Caribbean Island of
Martinique, killed over 20,000 people. A lava can travel at speeds approaching 150 km/h.

Every volcanic eruption comes with a huge noise. The noise of some eruptions were
heard 2400 km away from the eruption points.

There are two major types of volcanic activity observed on earth. One is the Fissure
eruptions and the other one is the central point eruptions. In fissure eruptions, the lava
pours out of the elongate fissures, flooding a very large area.

In the Central point eruptions , the magma comes out of a centralized vent and the material
piles up around this area to form a cone-shaped volcano.
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Most of the volcanic activities occur along the plate boundaries. The subduction zones and
divergent boundaries are the major volcanic hot spots.

Lava flow textures are very unique earth’s features. As lava flows, the top of the flow may
cool off forming a crust that gets rumpled as lava below continues to flow. This creates a
ropy texture called pahoehoe.

If chunks of lava cool and drop from the lava flow, they create a surface covered with
jagged blocks of rock. This texture is called aa.

When lava is erupted underwater it cools to form a rounded texture which is called pillow
lava or pillow basalts.

Volcanoes are classified based on their size and shape. The shape of a volcano depends on
whether a cone is built from lava flows or pyroclastics, or both.

Volcanoes formed from lava flows usually cover a large area and have gently sloping sides.
Ones formed by pyroclastic material, they usually have steeper sides and cover less area.

Calderas are large depressions, called craters, in volcanoes.

They form from collapsing of or by blasting material out of, the top or side of the volcano.

Shield volcanoes are different creations. Shields are very large, broad volcanic cones with
gently sloping sides. They form from build-up of successive basaltic lava flows.

The Hawaiian island volcanoes are typical examples of shield volcanoes.

Composite volcanoes are not as large in area as shield volcanoes, but they have steeper
sides. They form from alternating lava flows and pyroclastic materials. The typical
examples of composite volcanoes are the Mt. St. Helens and other Cascade volcanoes in the
Pacific Northwest.

Cinder cones are small cones made entirely of pyroclastic deposits. These commonly form
on the flanks of shield volcanoes or on lava plains where lava fountains spray or sputter
into the air.

The chemistry of lava tends to correlate with the magma temperature, its viscosity and its
mode of eruption.

Based on their chemistry, the lava flows can be classified into three basic types as felsic,
intermediate, and mafic lavas. All of them generate varieties of igneous rocks.

Felsic lavas are silicic varities.

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They may form rhyolite and dacite rocks. They typically form lava spines, lava domes and
associated with pyroclastic deposits. Most Silicic lava flows are extremely viscous, and
typically fragment as they extrude, producing blocky autobreccias.

They come from the Felsic magmas which can erupt at temperatures as low as 650 to
750 °C.

The Intermediate lava are called as andesitic lavas. They are lower in aluminium and
silica, and usually somewhat richer in magnesium and iron.
Intermediate lavas form andesite domes and block lavas.
These lava are commonly hotter and are in the range of 750 to 950 °C.

The Mafic lava are basaltic lavas. They are typified by their high ferromagnesian content.
They generally erupt at temperatures in excess of 950 °C.
Basaltic magma is high in iron and magnesium, and has relatively lower aluminium and
silica.
These basaltic lavas tend to produce low-profile shield volcanoes or "flood basalt fields".

There is one more type recently recognised as Ultramafic lava.

The Ultramafic lavas contain komatiite and highly magnesian magmas.

These are thought to have erupted at temperatures of 1600 °C.

Lavas also may contain many other components, sometimes including solid crystals of
various minerals, fragments of exotic rocks known as xenoliths and fragments of previously
solidified lava.

An ideal lava flow will have a brecciated top. They may develop as pillow lava or
autobreccia.

The top of the lava will tend to be glassy, having been flash frozen in contact with the air or
water.

The centre of a lava flow is commonly massive and crystalline, flow banded or layered, with
microscopic groundmass crystals.

ʻAʻā (also spelled aa, aʻa, ʻaʻa, and a-aa; pronounced meaning "is a stony rough lava.

It is one of three basic types of flow lava. ʻAʻā is basaltic lava characterized by a rough or
rubbly surface composed of broken lava blocks called clinker.

Pāhoehoe (also spelled pahoehoe, pronounced /pɑː.hɔɪ.hɔɪ/), meaning "smooth, unbroken

lava". It is a basaltic lava that has a smooth, billowy, undulating, or ropy surface.

4
A pāhoehoe flow typically advances as a series of small lobes and toes that continually
break out from a cooled crust. It also forms lava tubes where the minimal heat loss
maintains low viscosity.
The Pahoehoe lavas typically have a temperature of 1100 to 1200 °C.

Pillow lava is yet another lava structure typically formed when lava emerges from an
underwater volcanic vent or subglacial volcano. This happens when a lava flow enters into
the oceans.

The lava flows and eruptions create very distinctive formations, landforms and
topographical features from the macroscopic to the microscopic.

Cinder cones are formed from tephra or ash and tuff which is thrown from an explosive
vent.

Spatter cones are formed by accumulation of molten volcanic slag and cinders ejected in a
more liquid form.

A kīpuka denotes an elevated area such as a hill, ridge or old lava dome inside or
downslope from an area of active volcanism.

Lava domes are formed by the extrusion of viscous felsic magma.

Lava tubes are formed when a flow of relatively fluid lava cools on the upper surface
sufficiently to form a crust.

Lava lakes are also formed by volcanic eruptions. Rarely, a volcanic cone may fill with lava
but not erupt. Lava which pools within the caldera is known as a lava lake.

Lava deltas form wherever sub-aerial flows of lava enter standing bodies of water.
Lava deltas are generally associated with large-scale, effusive type basaltic volcanism.

Lava flows are enormously destructive to property in their path. Generally lavas move
slowly enough for people to get out of their way. Casualties caused directly by active lava
flows are very rare.

Severe injuries and deaths have occurred, either because people had their escape route cut
off, or because they got too close to the flow.

Deaths attributed to volcanoes frequently have a different cause.

It may happen due to volcanic ejecta, pyroclastic flow from a collapsing lava dome, lahars,
poisonous gases that travel ahead of lava, or due to explosions caused when the flow comes
into contact with water.

Lava can easily destroy entire towns and many villages.

5
 Eruptions are commonly measured in terms of tonnage of "ejecta" produced.

Unlike an earthquake, where there is a definite correlation between damage and the
earthquake magnitude scale, volcano measurement does not reflect damage.

Can volcanic eruptions be predicted?

Yes. It is possible to visualize the outbursts of lavas. Using an orbiting satellite, its possible
to monitor the hot spots on the planet's surface.

These new monitoring systems can processes data from geo-stationary environmental
satellites, enabling scientists to monitor volcano-prone areas up to four times per hour.
Such a system accurately predicted the November 1998 eruption of the Popocatépetl
volcano on the outskirts of Mexico City and an eruption on the Galapagos Islands chain in
September 1998.

In 2004, the U.S. Geological Survey issued a "notice of volcanic unrest" five days before
Mount St. Helens ejected a plume of steam and ash about three kilometres into the air.

Volcanic eruptions can also be predicted by measuring changes in heat and in the ground's
tilt.

Lava flows can change our planet’s climate temporarily. Eruptions often force people living
near volcanoes to abandon their homes forever.

A lava can destroy crops, industrial plants, transportation systems, and electrical grids.

It is our duty to predict its mechanism of delivery, time and magnitude to minimize the
impacts.

Do not fear for the fiery lava.

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