Strangely beautiful electrical phenomenon

[tcmtech]

I have been reading up on the recent volcanic activity and events and I found these pictures to be something that may be of perhaps unique interest to many here.

Its a lightning like electrical discharge that relates to volcanic eruptions and similar geological outburst events.

Click on the pictures for the full sized views.

 

[Birdman Adam]

Are those real pictures??? That is amazing - I might make one a desktop background!

I wonder how to electricity is generated from an eruption...?

 

[tcmtech]

Are those real pictures??? That is amazing - I might make one a desktop background!

Yep! they are real!

There are more on line as well and lots of other interesting stuff related to the "Dirty Lightning" phenomenon too.

The center picture already became my new computer back ground at home.

 

[amando96]

That's funny, my background is this:
**broken link removed**
but in 2000x3000px or something like that
and has been for a few weeks

here's an attempt to explain:
Electric Volcanoes - Windows Live

apparently it's not quite explainable yet...

 

[Birdman Adam]

Reason: i failed at spelling

FAIL lol

I'm thinking maybe the rush of material upward causes an enormous amount of friction, which creates electrical charges. Kinda like sliding your socks along a carpet in the winter.

 

[shortbus=]

Thats some of it, and some I think is Piezo from rock under pressure. They claim that right before an earthquake there is a discharge light/glow in the sky.

If you've ever used a sandblaster you get shocks from the dust and speed of the air.

 

[Sceadwian]

Keep in mind, depending on the composition of the eruption, that dust that's escaping is actually powdered sugar sized particles of glass... Puts to shame any kind of Vandegraph generator we can make, but the principal is the same.

We have a Guyson cabinet at my work that uses fine ceramic media to blast parts clean or for finish reasons. The main media feed lines are unshielded plastic tubes. Get within 10cm of one on a dry day and you're gonna get some nasty surprises, and that's sand sized glass beads only blown by 60PSI air.

 

[Mikebits]

Thanks for sharing TCM, pretty cool looking, wish I could see it in real life. I also found this image.

**broken link removed**

 

[Birdman Adam]

How close are we to storing energy from lightning strikes?

 

[Ghost of the Shadows]

How close are we to storing energy from lightning strikes?

A footwalk from your position to the moon I guess.
I think that one bolt could power a city like new-york for a whole year..*** was wrong

Well, if we ain't gonna store it may we find a device that use the ionosphere and draw current from that envelop, or something.
Isn't what Telsa was planning to do ? (Even tho people beleive he wanted to use the energy from the earth).

However they already plan on using that envellope to focus energy on targets on earth by injecting power in it... lol (talking about the HAARP project of course).

 

[mneary]

How close are we to storing energy from lightning strikes?

It's been estimated that a stroke of lightning is of the order of 500 MJ. (Source: Wikipedia).

That would power a city of 50,000 people (1kW average per person) for ten seconds.

 

[tcmtech]

Heres a link to some more amazing pictures of the eruption.

More from Eyjafjallajokull - The Big Picture - Boston.com

 

[shortbus=]

I saw on the news that while most of the airports in Europe where closed, the main airport in Iceland was still open! Prevailing winds or GW?

 

[Sceadwian]

shortbus, you should be dragged out into the street and shot for mentioning GW =\
Europe is opening their airports now. Good saftey precaution if you ask me. Jet airplanes don't do too well when they start breathing micro crystalline glass about the size of powdered sugar. Depending on how dense/where the cloud actually is right now it's more an issue of dramatically increasing wear on airplanes not a OMG we're gonna crash and die thing.

 

[tcmtech]

I saw on the news that while most of the airports in Europe where closed, the main airport in Iceland was still open! Prevailing winds or GW?

I saw some pictures of jet engine damage from the ash cloud and after seeing them I think it warrants staying on the ground.
I would post some but for some reason every picture link comes up with a source not found error today.

As far as that other thing being related to the first thing or vice versa, Someone else can post the links. Otherwise I will have to deal with someone else's tantrums and BS again which will eventually (as always) result in getting this thread locked down over nothing as well.

 

[Mikebits]

I think this was a good post with no ill intent and it would be unfair to lock it based on one comment. Let's keep it on topic as this volcano is a phenomena that should be of interest to all and how it unfolds may be of interest as well.

 

[Sceadwian]

Who said anything about being locked?

 

[Mikebits]

All I am saying is that we should keep the letters followed by F and V out of this thread. Past empirical data proves that the use of those two letters results in the closing of threads.

 

[Ghost of the Shadows]

I like the F word.
But I like volcanos more.

Those lightings in the volcano and those pictures someone posted are truly amazing.

 

[shortbus=]

Dying words as I lay in the street, "wow! no sense of humor here any more"

Why is it that if your in the "inner circle" you can make any comment you want, at any time you want? Some one who is just barely allowed to have a voice, is at the "inner circles" wrath.