Natural Phenomena
Volcanic Eruption
Geological Events
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The expulsion of magma, ash, gas or rock fragments from a volcano onto Earth's surface, ranging from the slow, effusive outpouring of fluid lava to the sudden, violent explosion of gas-charged, viscous magma into a towering ash column. An eruption's character depends heavily on the magma's chemistry and gas content, and the largest explosive eruptions can inject enough ash and sulfur aerosols into the stratosphere to measurably cool global climate for a year or more.
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Volcanic eruptions are typically preceded and accompanied by volcano-tectonic earthquakes and seismic swarms caused by magma movement through the crust, a mechanistic link volcanologists use to forecast eruptions.
Lahar, Natural Phenomena Lahars are volcanic mudflows commonly triggered directly by an eruption, when hot pyroclastic material rapidly melts snow and ice or mixes with a volcano's crater lake and heavy rainfall on its flanks.
Pyroclastic flows are a direct, fast-moving product of certain explosive volcanic eruptions, formed when an eruption column collapses or a lava dome fragments, sending superheated gas and volcanic matter down the slope.
Volcanic lightning is generated within the ash-rich eruption plume itself, produced by charge separation among colliding ash particles and ice during an explosive eruption.
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