In fact, when we close our eyes and think about this scenario, when a giant iceberg is dropped into the lava, “cosss!” We can guess that it made the sound, but what about after?
We can all guess that fighting fire with fire makes things worse, but let’s take a closer look at what happens when a fiery volcano meets ice.
In fact, in 1973 local authorities in Iceland tried to stop the lava flow using the very cold sea water.
But 5 billion liters of sea water was not enough to stop the advancing lava. In this way they were only able to slow down the flow power of the lava. What if we tried to leave a huge piece of iceberg in the middle of the volcano instead of pouring seawater into the lava?
Let’s start with a simple simulation. For example, Mount Michael in the South Sandwich Islands might be a sensible area. This mountain has bubbles with a temperature of about 988°C to 1,279°C and a lava lake with an average width of 110 meters. Also, since it is located in a deserted area, life is not possible.
We need an iceberg about the size of a football field and a half to throw it into the lava lake on Mount Michael.
In 2017, a huge iceberg broke off on the Antarctic peninsula, and this iceberg was even bigger than Luxembourg. This means that Mount Michael is 200,000 times larger than the lava lake.
Let’s take this broken iceberg and most of it and throw it into the lava. As soon as we do this, the first thing we will see will be a sudden burst of steam. The meeting of ice and lava causes the ice to instantly change from solid to gas, bypassing its liquid form. This is called sublimation.
Then two more situations can occur.
The ice turns into steam faster than it should, and this steam creates more pressure inside the volcano, causing the lava-filled mountain to explode.
In addition, hardened magma, called tephra, rises into the air and explodes, just like fireworks, and the scattered pieces of lava can be the size of a house or a car.
Another possibility is that the ice is cooling the surface temperature of the lava. As the steam tries to disappear, the lava will appear to be boiling and harden.
Again, when it comes to throwing an iceberg into a volcano, the hard crust inside traps the gas it has. The pressure of the compressed gas over time leads things to an unpredictable explosion.
In summary, throwing an iceberg into an active volcano to stop a volcanic eruption will make the eruption worse given all these possibilities.
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