Could you Please tell me , if The French Nuclear testing going on in the
Pacific, triggered the Eruption of Mt. Ruapehu (close enough ),
I really believe that this Eruption is directly related to
the French Testing.. What do you think?????
Darin Connolly
Dear Darin,
In the Thursday 28 September edition of the 'The Australian', Dr. Colin
Wilson, one of
the volcanologists heading research into the eruption at Mt Ruapehu,
dismissed possible links between French nuclear testing and New Zealand's
recent volcanic eruptions as "crap." Wilson continued "Volcanoes were
erupting long before nuclear testing and they will be erupting long after
nuclear testing. There is no connection. It's simply ludicrous. If
piddling around with nuclear devices, however many thousands of
kilometres away, can have this effect, then why isn't Ruapehu affecting
Naruhoe (a dormant volcano which occasionally erupts and is next door to
Ruapehu)."
Mururoa is roughly 4,000 miles (6,500 km) away from Ruapehu and on the
Pacific plate. Ruapehu is on the Indian-Australian plate. The amount of
energy, in the form of a wave, after traveling this distance would be
incredibly small. There were no changes in the eruption of Kilauea in
Hawaii during the tests. No other volcanoes on the Pacific rim began to
erupt.
The energy released by the 110 kiloton weapon on Oct. 2 was roughly
equivalent to the energy released by a 6.5-7 magnitude earthquake. There
are dozens of earthquakes of this size every year. Volcanologists have
not found a correlation between large earthquakes and the onset of
volcanic eruptions.
There are lots of volcanic eruptions. Some of them are bound to coincide
with mankind's foolishness but they are not related to each other.
Steve Mattox, University of North Dakota
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