Lava Fountains vs the Empire State Building

By Ben • infographics, nature, science • 4 Mar 2013

Lava fountains are impressive. Recently Mt. Etna has been throwing up lava fountains that reach heights of 600-800 meters tall. Erik Klemeti of the Eruptions blog compared that to the size of the Empire State Building:Etna Lava Fountains on February 23, 2013

In his post on the Mt. Etna laval fountains there was a discussion on the height of the largest lava fountains ever recorded. While not official, it is believed that lava fountains during Mt. Vesuvius' 1779 eruption reached heights of 3,000 meters. I wondered what that would look like, so I threw together this image which compares a 3,000 m lava fountain to the height of the Empire State Building:

A 3000 meter lava fountain compared to the Empire State Building.

In order for lava to reach 3000 meters, if we ignore air resistance, it would have to leave the vent traveling nearly 550 miles per hour.

There's a Rhett Allain Dot.Physics post in here if we attempt to look at force, pressure, volume, and acceleration of the magma...

inspired by: Stunning Lava Fountains From Italys Etna at Wired Science

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