What If A Human Touches Volcanic Ash

What would happen if you poured cold water into a volcano?

Some pretty good answers here but none really talked about ash!Volcanic ash is formed when erupting magma comes in contact with volatiles like water or CO[math]_2[/math]. The water is vaporized, and the expanding steam blasts apart the magma into small (as small as 2mm) globules. These globules rise up and can get carried around in the wind, to be deposited 100’s or 1000’s of km away from the source.This commonly happens when lava comes in contact with a body of water like the ocean, or if the volcanic caldera (the bowl at the top) sinks below the water table, and magma erupts up through the water.The ash is basically glass, and can cause a lot of damage to human health and structures. Airplanes are at great risk because the hardened ash becomes molten when it enters a plane’s combustion chamber, then re-solidifies on the turbines, causing the engine to stall.Once the ash settles on the ground, it provides a nitrogen and phosphorus-rich topsoil layer that facilitates new plant growth.So basically, if you poured cold water into a volcano, you would definitely generate steam, and potentially generate ash (if you have enough water)!

Do you think New Zealand is the best country for human beings to live?

I don’t think that fear is the best way to pick a country to live in. Pick a home for its positive attributes.Earthquakes are common in New Zealand, but actually cause way fewer deaths than car accidents. I wouldn’t bother with worrying about those.What you should really worry about is volcanic activity. New Zealand has a few active volcanoes.The Hatepe eruption at Lake Taupo, of around 180 CE, ejected some 120 cubic km, (29 cu mi), of which 30 cubic km, (7.2 cu mi), was ejected in the space of a few minutes. This makes it one of the most violent eruptions in the last 5000 years. . . . It is believed to have first emptied the lake then followed that feat with a pyroclastic flow that covered about 20,000 square kilometres (7,722 sq mi) of land with volcanic ash.If that isn’t scary enough then you can always think about the Earth’s last super-eruption back about 26,500 years ago—the Oruanui eruption. That was about ten times as big as the Hatepe, and left the entire North Island covered in ash, in places up to 200 m deep. With 1,170 cubic km, (280 cu mi) of total deposits. Now that’s a lot of dirt.Auckland, New Zealand’s most populous city, with 1 million residents, sits on another volcanic region, with 53 volcanoes, the most recent eruption creating Rangitoto Island, just 550 years ago. Christchurch and Dunedin are adjacent to extinct volcanoes.Maungawhau / Mount Eden is about 28,000 old. The rocks at the base of the cone are still hot to touch.If you are fearful it might be less traumatic to just worry about those Australian snakes.Despite all that I think New Zealand is a great country to live in. That’s why, after experiencing a few, I have returned to live here.

What happens when a volcano erupts and it starts raining?

The volcano erupts.The rain gets laden with volcanic ash.The rocks formed from the deposition of the ash show evidence of the rain in the form of accretionary lapilli:These are literally fossilised raindrops.Otherwise nothing special happens. The volcano is much more powerful than the rain so there is no chance of the rain ‘putting the volcano out’.If the rain is heavy, then the volcanic ash on the ground can easily be remobilised and a lahar can form (which is basically a flash flood with a large amount of rock and ash). The same effect can be had when a volcano erupts in a mountain covered with snow and ice.

How quickly would it take for Pompeii to be destroyed by ash from the eruption of Mount Vesuvius? Would it be a painful death or would it be quick?

The research and computer simulations by Volcanologist Giuseppe Mastrolorenzo and his team, published in 2010, show quite conclusively that most people were killed by the heat of the 4th pyroclastic flow, not by ash and falling debris as previously believed. The charring of wood and food, the melting of silver objects, damage to human bones and the positions of the people whose remains have been found indicate temperatures of 480 degrees Celsius at least. Human remains found in boat sheds on the shores of Herculaneum also indicate cadaveric spasms due to extreme heat.So, while it would take a while for Pompeii to be buried in ash, death would have been almost instantaneous for most as it wasn't caused by ash.

How does one drop of lava kill you?

RE: How does one drop of lava kill you?Lava “drops” come in various sizes and can be falling from great height.So you have one drop of lava fall on your skin. It gives you a 3rd degree burn which goes all the way through your skin to the muscle below. Or maybe it gives you a 4th degree burn all the way through your skin and into or through the muscle below. Either way there is now a path for bacteria to get into your body in an abnormal way. So some bacteria get into you, some bad bacteria. And let’s also say those bacteria get into your blood unbeknownst to you. In the meantime you’ve put a band-aid over the wound and you keep on grooving on the volcano (I know I would.) until you start feeling really sick. You are taken to the hospital but sepsis has become septic shock, and you know what comes next.A biggish drop of lava hits you on the top of your head cracking your skull open. You are knocked out and don’t come to in time to escape being vaporized by the advancing lava flow.Perhaps another biggish drop or bigger than biggish drop hits you on the top of your head, cracks your skull open and enters your brain. The extreme heat vaporizes the water in your brain and explodes your brain.I was going to put in a picture of and exploding head but I took a look at some of such images on the web and decided not to include one here. BTW, did you know that there IS such a thing as Exploding head syndrome? So charming.Anyway between this question and all of the stuff going on at Kilauea recently (2018–05–14) my brain is latched onto lava and it will probably show up in my dreams. Or should I say nightmares?In any case don’t mess around with erupting volcanoes. They have all kinds of ways to kill you like the aforementioned lava “drops”, explosions, toxic gases, pyroclastic flows, avalanches, landslides, lahars, volcanic ash getting into your lungs, etc.