MOUNT NYIRAGONGO
overview
Mount Nyiragongo is an active volcano located in east-central Africa's Virunga Mountains. It is located 12 miles (19 km) north of Goma in the volcano zone of Virunga National Park in Congo (Kinshasa), close to the Rwandan border. Nyiragongo is 11,385 feet (3,470 meters) high, with a liquid lava pool inside its main crater, which is 1.3 miles (2 km) broad and 820 feet (250 meters) deep. The mountain's oldest craters are famous for their flora.
Devastating eruptions are a well-known feature of Nyiragongo. Goma was largely destroyed by lava in 2002, leaving over 100,000 people homeless and causing a refugee crisis. About 2,000 people were killed there in 1977. Lava did not reach Goma's municipal limits in 2021, but the eruption damaged multiple towns and claimed around 30 lives.
A volcanic eruption is the release of hot gasses, molten rock, and hot rock fragments through a volcano, which is a vent in the crust of a planet or satellite. Devastating loss of lives and property can result from volcanic eruptions. They range from extremely deadly eruptions, like the one that devastated Pompeii in 79 CE, to comparatively mild ones, like those usually found in Hawaiian volcanoes. For thousands of years, people have been fascinated with volcanic eruptions, which are depicted in both fiction and many myths. These eruptions also contribute to climate change; while ash, dust, and gasses like sulfur dioxide can lower world temperatures, released gases like carbon dioxide can cause global warming.
The eruption process of volcanoes
When heat moves beneath the surface of the Earth, volcanic eruptions take place. Although they may be preceded by the release of gas and steam from tiny ground vents, they frequently start with a buildup of gas-rich magma (molten subterranean rock) in reservoirs close to the Earth's surface. Volcanic eruptions, particularly explosive ones, may also be indicated by small earthquakes, which could be brought on by a rising plug of viscous, thick magma oscillating against a sheath of more permeable magma.
Magma can occasionally come to the surface in conduits as a thin, fluid lava that either shoots straight up in luminous curtains or fountains or flows out constantly. This includes the eruptions of the volcanoes of Hawaii. In other instances, trapped gases rip the magma to pieces and launch sticky lava clots into the atmosphere. In more intense eruptions, solid pieces are released in a massive cloud of ash-filled gas that rises tens of thousands of meters into the air after an explosive blast hollows out the magma conduit. Mount Saint Helens' 1980 eruption serves as an illustration of this occurrence. A pyroclastic flow, a fluidized mixture of hot gas and incandescent particles, is often associated with explosive eruptions. It sweeps down a volcano's flanks, burning everything in its path. A catastrophic flood or avalanche that rushes down a volcano's slopes could come from the released ash or gasses melting a lot of ice if they gather on a high snowfield or glacier.
In addition to the direct loss of life and property caused by the eruption itself, volcanic eruptions can also cause collateral damage. In addition to causing respiratory conditions like silicosis, volcanic ash can be especially dangerous for newborns and those with long-term lung conditions. Both immediate and long-term issues can be brought on by gases like hydrogen fluoride, carbon monoxide, and hydrogen chloride. In addition to causing mass migration in impacted areas, eruptions can have a negative economic impact on workers' livelihoods. The threat posed by thick clouds of volcanic ash to jet aircraft was further illustrated by the 2010 eruption of Iceland's Eyjafjallajökull, which caused aviation authorities to ground flights throughout northern and central Europe for a number of days.
Depending on how they erupt, volcanoes can be categorized. Icelandic, Hawaiian, Strombolian, Vulcanian, Pelean, and Plinian are the six categories of volcanic eruptions, in order of least explosiveness. Each term designates a geographical area, a particular volcano, or a past eruption that best represents the type.
Earth is not the only place where volcanic eruptions occur. Because of Jupiter's mass and interactions with its sister moons, Europa and Callisto, the moon Io is susceptible to intense gravitational forces. Io is the solar system's most volcanically active body due to these forces, which also deform its shape. Olympus Mons is the biggest volcano in the solar system, and Mars is also home to a number of other volcanoes. Because Mars's low gravity for longer and more extensive lava flows, its volcanoes are shield volcanoes, which have a comparatively flat profile. (Olympus Mons' 700-kilometer [435-mile] diameter is thought to have been formed by eruptions that have been occurring for over a billion years.)
Cultural volcanic eruptions
Particularly in areas with considerable volcanic activity, volcanoes and volcanic eruptions are mentioned in a number of mythology and cultural traditions. The Latin Volcanus, or Vulcan, the name of the ancient Roman fire god, is where the word volcano originates. Rūaumoko, the deity of volcanoes and earthquakes, is revered by the Māori people of New Zealand (Aotearoa), which is located on the Pacific Ring of Fire. The Hawaiian goddess of fire and volcanoes is called Pele. According to Norse mythology, Surt, the fire giant, protects Muspelheim, a scorching, luminous region in the south.
Fiction frequently depicts volcanic activity.
Dante depicts Hell as an inverted cone in the Inferno part of The Divine Comedy (c. 1308–21), with a burning lake, representing a volcano crater, at the innermost and final circle. The heroes of Jules Verne's 1864 novel A voyage to the Center of the Earth begin their voyage in Iceland's Snaefellsjökull volcano and return to the surface by an eruption at the Mediterranean island of Stromboli. Verne also used a volcanic island as the setting for The Mysterious Island (1874), which concludes with the volcano erupting and destroying the island. Frodo and Sam journey to destroy the One Ring of Power, which is created by the Dark Lord Sauron in the flaming pits of Mount Doom in J.R.R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy (1954–55). The main plot point of the series is the trip to Mount Doom.
The world's climate and culture were profoundly impacted by the 1815 eruption of Mount Tambora in Indonesia, the biggest volcanic explosion in recorded history. Up to 150 cubic kilometers (about 36 cubic miles) of ash, pumice, and other rock, as well as aerosols, were released into the atmosphere by Tambora. The average global temperature was eventually lowered by up to 3 °C (5.4 °F) as a result of these materials' significant blocking of sunlight from reaching the Earth's surface. The year that followed was dubbed the "year without a summer." Mary Shelley came up with the idea for her masterpiece Frankenstein (1818) as she and her literary circle were cooped up indoors in Geneva during this depressing time.
Edvard Munch, a Norwegian painter, was inspired to create The Scream in 1893 after witnessing the blood-red sky halfway around the world during the 1883 eruption of Krakatoa, also in Indonesia, while out on a stroll.
The eruption that puts an end to the tribal conflict in One Million Years B.C. (1966), the volcanic base of the antagonist Blofeld in the James Bond movie You Only Live Twice (1967), and the obviously named Volcano (1997), in which Tommy Lee Jones and Anne Heche battle lava from an erupting volcano in Los Angeles, are just a few examples of how volcanic eruptions have been used as pivotal plot points in movies. Famous historical eruptions like Vesuvius and Mount Saint Helens have been included in a lot of movies and television shows.