Water coming out of the EarthVolcanic explosions are driven mostly by water and carbon dioxide. When

Water coming out of the EarthVolcanic explosions are driven mostly by water and carbon dioxide. When magma is at pressure inside the Earth, it can dissolve small amounts of water and carbon dioxide – compounds we’d call “volatile” since they form vapors at the Earth’s surface.Inside the Earth, these volatiles will dissolve in magma just like carbon dioxide dissolved in a soft drink; release the pressure and the gas will start bubbling out.Eruptions at volcanoes like this one, Kliuchevskoi on the Kamchatka Peninsula, are driven by volatiles. As magma rises towards Earth’s surface, the volatiles separate from the magma, forming gas bubbles that push their way up to the surface and drive explosions.How do these volatiles get inside the Earth? In the case of Kamchatka, it’s actually coming from the Pacific Plate. Kamchatka sits atop a subduction zone, where the Pacific plate sinks into the mantle beneath the Asian continental plate.The plate sinking into the mantle is covered with sediments including hydrocarbons and clays – compounds that contain carbon dioxide and water. On top of that, the rocks of the oceanic plate itself have been exposed to the waters of the ocean; those rocks will alter, soaking up water and making minerals like serpentine and chlorite that can store water as well.When the oceanic plate sinks into the mantle, it is heated so much that the minerals break down and the volatiles are released. Eventually, some of those volatiles make it back to the surface, pouring out of volcanic cones in clouds like you see from Kliuchevskoi. Most of the gas escaping from this volcano, and the driving force behind this eruption, is previously-subducted water. -JBBImage credit: NASA/ISShttps://www.flickr.com/photos/nasamarshall/11894452484/ -- source link

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