Naples Supervolcano – Should It Be Drilled?
Submitted by Robert Bast on May 16, 2011 – 2:43 pm2 Comments
The Daily Mail has an excellent article explaining the pros and cons of drilling into the supervolcano at the edge of Naples, and why scientists are concerned:
Now an international team, including scientists from the UK, wants to drill down inside the caldera to try to better understand exactly why part of it has risen 10ft since 1969. The area at the epicentre of the swelling has seen whole streets of houses crumble and collapse. The threat is imminent. The last time the ground rose like this (between 1430 and 1538) there was an eruption that caused the formation of a new volcano.
There is just a single scientist arguing against the drilling, citing an eruption (caused by drilling) of a mud volcano, in Lusi, Indonesia. The key arguments for the drilling are:
- The drilling will stop at two-and-a-half miles, two miles short of the magma reservoir.
- Magma cannot come up the drill hole
- They safely drilled an Icelandic volcano
- It is important for monitoring purposes
UPDATE, MAY 2012 – The Mayor of Naples has approved the drilling.
Hi, I may be a layman, but it seems obvious as to why the ground is rising around a volcano. It doesn’t take a university degree to work out what would happen if you poked at a balloon with a needle so why would you drill a hole into a volcano that was swelling up. The result seems obvious? Surely these scientists can find something better to do with their time that would benefit mankind rather than playing russian roulette with a volcano. Dumb-dumb-boom. Thanks Owen
Drilling in a volcano is kind of like poking a beehive with a stick, you won’t know how many angry bees you’ve disturbed until they swarm all around you.