![]() ![]() A volcanic ambushĮruptions at Nyiragongo generally transpire when the pressure of accumulating magma or an earthquake forces open fissures in the sides of the mountain, leading to the catastrophic draining of the lava lake or the eruption of magma stored deeper down.īut like the volcanoes that make them, individual eruptions have their own unique behaviors and properties, and no two are identical. If carbon dioxide-rich magma is tapped by Nyiragongo, dangerous volumes of the gas may also gush out of fissures and flood areas rather suddenly. “We have many people die because of mazuku every year in the area,” Smets says. Locals refer to it as mazuku, or “evil wind.” Being denser than air, the gas gathers unnoticed in low-lying areas. This gas often quietly exudes to the surface via aquifers above deep-seated bodies of degassing magma. The volcano’s magma is also particularly rich in carbon dioxide, an invisible, odorless gas. If the lava erupts from a high elevation, the volcano’s steep slope may give it an additional speed boost. Not so for Nyiragongo’s molten matter: Its lava has such a deficit of silica that it zips across the ground, especially if the lava is erupting at a high rate. Basaltic magma, the stuff erupting out of Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula right now, has a low proportion of silica in it, making it fairly runny, but on a flat surface it can easily be outwalked. The less silica you have, the less viscous or goopy the lava is once it erupts. Most magma has a decent amount of silica in it, a compound that acts as a sort of skeleton in molten rock. ![]() This combination of rifting and pluming creates some strange magmatic concoctions, says Christopher Jackson, a geologist at the University of Manchester in the U.K. What’s more, a plume of superheated but solid mantle material is rising from considerable depth to interact with the underbellies of the tectonic plates. This tectonic divide is known as the East African Rift.Īmong other things, this rifting action makes pathways for magma to rise and create volcanoes. A strip of land from the Red Sea down to Mozambique is being pulled asunder, with the Nubian plate to the northwest and the Somalian plate to the southeast moving in opposite directions by a few inches every decade. One is the leisurely geologic fragmentation of Eastern Africa. Nyiragongo, whose peak stands 11,400 feet above the DRC’s Virunga National Park, owes its existence to two things. With all these factors in play, the fiery mountain is capable of producing “the kind of eruptions you really fear,” says Corentin Caudron, a volcanologist at the Institute of Earth Sciences in Grenoble, France. Despite the best efforts of the Goma Volcano Observatory-set up in the eponymous city in 1986-no clear warning signals were detected prior to its latest eruption. Unauthorized use is prohibited.Īdd in the region’s political instability and bouts of conflict, and Nyiragongo is a profoundly difficult volcano to monitor. ![]()
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