How loud is the average valcanoe eruption?

Question

If you know please give the average decibels.

Answer 1

On the lip, Zero.

Answer 2

Average is a misleading value to use, because the loudness of volcanoes is highly skewed.  I just read a few sources that say it is common for volcanic eruptions to exceed 200 decibels.  But different parts of volcanoes make different sound intensities, and the type of eruption is important.  Explosive eruptions can be so loud that there is no real meaning to the decibel measurement, the shock wave is so intense that it can kill-louder than you can perceive with your weak human ears.  Krakatoa was supposedly heard  thousands of kilometers away, it was that loud.

People that I know that work on volcanoes have told me that the crackling and rumbling is roughly equivalent to a train, and this is for a volcano like Etna, outside the volcanic edifice where the lava is flowing.  Even small burps like the one that killed a few geologists in south america a decade or so ago are really loud from the explosions and smashing of ejecta back into the ground.  Maybe the equivalent of the roar of an avalanche or rock slide on a mountain slope.

Volcanoes are generally very loud, painfully loud, even very loud (train or plane loud) from a safe distance.