Plan to pierce heart of urban monster volcano

[n2doc]

09 November 2009 by Axel Bojanowski

TO ANCIENT Romans the Phlegraean Fields hosted the entrance to Hades. In modern times it is better known as the site of a "supercolossal" volcanic eruption 39,000 years ago.

Will we see the next disaster coming? That's one of the questions an ambitious drilling project hopes to answer by sinking boreholes into Campi Flegrei, as the giant collapsed volcanic crater is now called. Starting as early as next month, the Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project is planning to drill seven holes in the region (see map).

Though the researchers on this particular project point out that any risk is small, it will begin amid debate about whether such endeavours are safe, given the unknowns of a volcano's interior. A few say drilling might even trigger a major eruption.

Though the caldera has no visible volcanic cone, it dwarfs nearby Vesuvius. "Most of the metropolitan area of Naples is located within the caldera," says Giuseppe De Natale of the National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology's (INGV) Vesuvius Observatory in Naples, who is leading the project.

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20427333.600-plan-to-pierce-heart-of-urban-monster-volcano.html

[ret5hd]

1. See what bombing the moon leads to!!!

[supernova]

2. Supervolcanos are freaky!

[HereSince1628]

3. Didn' uccisione di curiosità di t il gatto? n/t

[kestrel91316]

4. Je comprendes vous, lol.

[Orrex]

5. Locking--no sex threads.

[Dead_Parrot]

6. potrebbe essere una cat-astrofe!

:hide:

[IndianaGreen]

7. Drill, baby, drill!

Isn't that what caused the eruption of the mud volcano in Indonesia?

:nuke: