Can you tell me anything more about Nuees Ardentes? Or if it's easier,
tell me the name of a good scientific paper on them.
Ian Wilson
Hi Ian,
A nuees ardentes is
a hot mixture of dust and gas. They are mostly gas so
their density and viscosity are relatively low, therefore they traves very
fast (100 km/hour); you cannot out-run them. They can be caused by a
sort of "boiling-over" eruption (where there isn't enough explosive power
to throw material into the air so it just spills out of the crater), or
the collapse of a vertically-erupted column, or the collapse of the front
or side of a lava dome or lava flow.
Good references to look in are:
- chapter 8 of Volcanoes, by Gordon Macdonald (1972)
- chapter 12 of Volcanoes, by Peter Francis (1993)
Good Luck!
Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii
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