Friday, March 14, 2008

LAHARS rule

A lahar is a type of mudflow composed of pyroclastic material and water that flows down from a volcano, along a river valley. The word lahar is from the Javanese language of Indonesia.

Lahar is like concrete, its wet and muddy when it’s moving and hardens when stopped. Lahars can be huge. The Osceola lahar produced 5,600 years ago by Mount Rainier in Washington produced a ton of mud 460 ft deep in the White River canyon and extends over an area of over 130 sq mi for a total volume of 0.55 cubic miles.

Lahars usually travel down valleys. They have a wide range of velocities from 1 m/s to 40 m/s. The speed of a lahar depends on the channel width, channel slope, volume of the flow, and grain size composition. Lahars can travel long distances. Some lahars have traveled hundreds of kilometers from their source. The deposits of a lahar that traveled 60 km from its source at Mount Rainier can be found near the large city of Seattle, Washington. The lahar's origin at Mount Rainier helped make that volcano a decade volcano.

Lahars have been known to transport very large boulders. At Mount Pinatubo, boulders measuring 1.5 m long were not uncommon in lahar deposits. The lahars from Nevado del Ruiz transported a boulder that was 208 cubic meters, 300 m downstream.

When a lahar travels down valley, the high point of the lahar is usually marked by the mudline it leaves on trees, valley walls, and buildings. This mudline marks the upper limit of how high a lahar will go. This upper limit is important because it defines how high people must go to be out of danger from the lahar. The small eruption of Nevado del Ruiz in 1987 produced large lahars that destroyed the city of Armero. Unfortunately, the 30,000 people who lost their lives might have been saved had they established an appropriate line of communication and evacuated to higher ground. If you live in the mountains you should be safe but if the mountain is volcanic I can’t believe you still live there.

11 comments:

Anonymous said...

You really have all the facts.good job!jk2

Anonymous said...

lots of fact nice title
ah2

Anonymous said...

lots of good facts. very complete
-MM2

Anonymous said...

nice paper you answered the question exactly right=)

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that awsome information i can use this information a lot when my grandma yells at for playing in the mud. I can say factural information to get her ooff my back.


jm3

Anonymous said...

really good information. I now understand exacty what lahar is.


CR3

Anonymous said...

you ad a lot of good information. you had a lot of questioned answered.
SG3

Anonymous said...

amen lahars do rule my school

Anonymous said...

you really hadgood facts and you answered the question really well!!



~ss4

Anonymous said...

I hate to sound like a broken record, but you've got all the facts. The whole thing was well-put-together and I learned something new!

~RN4

Anonymous said...

nice facts and i liked how you added your own twist to the paper. np4