Can a monsterous volcano go off by drillng 100 mile into earth?

Question

Can a monsterous volcano go off by drillng 100 mile into earth?

Answer 1

A 1km deep geothermal borehole in Iceland intersected a pool magma on the 8th September 1977, the resulting mini-eruption lasted for 15-25 minutes and destroyed the borehole, burying it under 3 tons of volcanic rock. It remains the only time a borehole hit magma.

I remember seeing the aftermath on TV, a very strange sight ... several gray steam pipes poking out of a black conical micro-volcano about 15 feet high (a spatter cone). In this case the workers had plenty of warning, there were numerous mini-earthquakes in the weeks beforehand.

So to answer your question, no, a borehole is too narrow to release enough magma for anything other then a micro-eruption, like in Iceland. The magma quickly cools and solidifies in the narrow borehole.

Gudrún Larsen, Karl Grönvold & Sigurdur Thorarinsson, 1979. Volcanic eruption through a geothermal borehole at Námafjall, Iceland. Nature 278, 707 - 710.

Answer 2

Well, that also depends on what you mean by "mounstrous".

Actually, we have created volcanoes by drilling only a few thousand feet into the earth. There are gasses (water, methane, sulfur dioxide, and carbon dioxide) at great pressure underneath the surface of the earth. If you drill into them without something to counter that pressure, they will come out.

Volcanoes work on the principle that PV=nRT, where P-pressure, v=volume, n=number of moles of gas, R is a constant, and T= temperature. As you reduce pressure, you increase volume. It is this expansion of gas that leads to the explosive nature of volcanoes. It is the same thing that leads to an explosive bottle of soda if you open it too quick.

When we drill into the earth without using proper safety measures, pressure is not high enough and the gas comes out. When it gets to the surface, it expands rapidly, creating a "blow-out".

This happened fairly frequently in the past but is now a bit less common, as we are prepared for it and we have blow-out preventers when we drill - these are devices capable of shutting in the borehole and withstanding a great amount of pressure before the gas gets out.

Now the volcanoes we are talking about that humans can make while drilling are not super big - they are not Krakatau, for instance. None the less, they operate on the same principle, and if you have a potential blow-out, they'll usually evacuate the population at least a mile around the well.

If you were to drill into a magma chamber, a similar scenario would occur. Only in this case, you would start the volcanic eruption rather then creating it. All the materials are in place - the gas-filled magma and the great pressure differential - you just start the volcanic eruption by putting a hole in the ground and making a pathway for the gasses to escape.

Currently due to heat, pressure and cost we are unable to drill 100 miles into the earth. I think the deepest well now is around 5 miles into the earth, and even that one was hundreds of millions of dollars to install. Were we able to drill that deep, however, we would have the same problems at depth that we have on the surface: if you didn't regulate the pressure, the fluids would come out, and if you didn't regulate the escape of fluids, they'd probably come out explosively.

Answer 3

First off you would have to figure out how to drill 100 miles which is probably impossible so no to your question.

Answer 4

If you were to drill 100 miles into the Earth, you probably would not cause a monsterous volcano to appear; here's why:

the Earth's mantle, which you would be drilling into, is not molten, but under enough pressure and heat to flow (geologists call this state 'plastic'). By drilling into it, we would just ruin the drill. In short, there wouldn't be any magma to flow up the hole and cause an eruption. However, if you were to drill into a magma chamber, near a previously existing volcano, and it was under enough pressure, it could feasibly vent through your drill hole and cause considerable damage. But the depth wouldn't be an issue.

Answer 5

Earth's crust 5-40 km

mantle 2885 km

outer core 2270 km

inner core 1216 km

No, if anything, you might hit the outer core which consists of molten liquid iron, nickel and cobalt.  The inner and outer core make up what's referred to as Earth's "dynamo".  

The geo Dynamo in the Earth's core generates the magnetic field of the Earth. The outer core is molten liquid iron, while the inner core is solid iron/nickel/cobalt. "Eddy currents" arise in the molten iron from the spinning motion of the Earth, known as the Coriolis effect. It's been estimated that the strength of the main magnetic field NEAR THE CORE is about 100,000 Gauss, or 10 Tesla. This results in a magnetic field of 0.5 to 2.0 Gauss ON THE SURFACE of the Earth. This is because magnetic flux diminishes as the inverse cube of the distance. The closer you are to the core, the greater the magnetic flux, and the further away you are, the smaller the flux. Google: inverse cube law.

Research has shown that it is the MAGNETIC FIELD of Earth which DEFLECTS the solar wind and protects our water molecules from being photo-dissociated by solar uv. Mars once had flowing rivers, but lost all of it due to photo-dissociation by solar uv, stripping away its atmosphere and water.