Posted on 03/10/2007 5:53:52 PM PST by melt
PORONG, Indonesia -- For nine months, a gaping hole in the ground has spit out a torrent of hot, black mud, swallowing thousands of houses outside Indonesia's second-largest city and attracting amazed geologists from around the world.
Most say the flow is unstoppable, but Indonesian specialists refuse to listen, and they have recently begun carrying out a scheme straight from a Hollywood movie: dropping nearly 1,500 concrete balls into the mouth of the mud volcano.
"We know lots of people think this is a crazy idea," said Satria Bijaksana, a professor and one of three geologists behind the $130 million plan aimed at reducing the spew of the sludge by as much as 70 percent. "But we think it will work."
Mud volcanoes are fairly common along volatile tectonic belts and in areas rich in oil and natural gas like Indonesia.
But the eruption just outside the city of Surabaya is exceptional because of the sheer volume of mud that has been surging each day from the hole -- enough to fill 50 Olympic-size swimming pools. Twelve villages and 20 factories have been swallowed, with mud-caked roofs and the tops of lamp posts as the only reminders of what once was there.
Some scientists suggest the rupture was triggered by improper drilling at a nearby natural gas site. Other research points to a major earthquake two days before the mud first appeared in a rice field last May .
The ball-dropping operation, which began last month, follows several failed attempts to contain or stop the mud.
(Excerpt) Read more at boston.com ...
They better get there cameras out for the next filming of "Engineering Disasters." A volcano spews because of pressure built up by excessive heat of the molten lava. It the pressure gets too high it can lead to an eruption. If they stop the flow in one area I wonder if they will cause a bigger problem in another.
This may be a lesson in physics. Can man build a volcano cork that is more powerful than the volcano? Film at eleven.
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