With a Better Understanding of Physics, We Could Predict Volcanic Eruptions

It will take a better understanding of underground physics, but volcanologists believe it may be possible. In the summer of 1991, Pinatubo, a volcano in the Philippines, self-destructed. The eruption started on June 12, and three days later it culminated in a tremendous explosion . By the time pyroclastic flows--incandescent avalanches of molten rock and gas--tumbled down its sterilized slopes, Pinatubo's peak had been obliterated and replaced by a 2.5-kilometer-wide chasm. The eruption killed more than 800 people, mainly because roofs, weighed down by rain-saturated ash, collapsed. But it could have been so much worse: About 250,000 people, across multiple cities and a sprawling US Air Force base, lived in the volcano's shadow. When Pinatubo started convulsing and belching steam in April of that year, scientists from the US and the Philippines deployed an array of instruments that tracked the volcano's inner tumult. "We didn't know much about that volcano, and so there was this really rapid geological assessment. And the assessment said, 'Oh, crap, when this thing erupts, it only erupts big,'" says Mike Poland, current scientist in charge at the US Geological Service's Yellowstone Volcano Observatory.