Geologists will drill holes in the Campi Flegrei volcano

Campi Flegrei In Italy is one of Earth’s most volcanic high risk places.
Next month the Campi Flegrei Deep drilling project will start, when a team of Geologists will drill seven '4 km' deep boreholes in the volcano.

According to the critics, this drilling could trigger a volcanic disaster, but researchers say the holes won't be deep enough to nececarily cause a disaster.

Ralf Büttner, a volcanologist at the University of Würzburg in Germany:
"It is even theoretically conceivable that, ultimately, a major eruption could result.
Knowledge about the viscosity and processes of gases in magma is very limited. What we do know is based on extremely small samples, which makes it difficult to extrapolate the results to larger masses, he says. So volcanic drilling projects are often based on "wishful thinking rather than on hard facts"

www.newscientist.com...

www.popsci.com...

"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.

"A major eruption, like the one 39,000 years ago, would leave large parts of Europe buried under a thick layer of ash," says Agust Gudmundsson of the Royal Holloway University of London, one of the researchers involved in the drilling project. Since then, smaller eruptions have occurred every few centuries.

More information about the volcano and the drilling project are found in the above links.


So what do you think?
Is this a risky project?



[edit on 10/11/2009 by GypsK]

While their at it why dont they throw some TNT into the Yellowstone Chimera Sounds a terrible idea something a James Bond Villian would do

I always assumed that Campi Flegri was just a de-gassing vent which was connected to the Vesuvius chamber, but only releases gaseous elements aside from the occasional uplift which has caused brief faults giving small volcanic cones where the fracture zone is.

The Vesuvius chamber isnt under any immediate pressurisation, as no internal source of magma is being injected into the Vesuvius and Naples area just yet.
Drilling 4km deep in the Campi Flegri field would possibly cause small gaseous venting, but nothing of a volcanic cataclysm like this source is hyping up.

It really depends on the depth of the magma chamber as to whether or not anything will happen. Concerning what the volcano is, it is a caldera, a caldera eruption will dwarf any Vesuvius eruption. It is a ryolite volcano which makes its eruptions like a very small Yellowstone eruption.

If there are no resurgent domes or ground lifting going on at the time when they drill they will be ok as long as they do not puncture the magma chamber. If they even come close, when drilling, to the magma chamber there is still a potential for outgassing to occur. This would lead to an eruption if and only if there was a significant ammount of pressurized melt down there.

Just my Geological view point,
Angel One

thanks for the info

I rather leave this up to more experienced people before forming my own opinion.
I've read about previous drilling projects gone wrong, where magma entered the drill tubes. They didn't forsee these either.

Let's just hope they don't 'trigger' a big one

Seems like your right to be concerned, this VEI7 Supervolcano (Vesuvius is a mere VEI4) last had activity in the mid 1500's, and even in the 1980's up to 40,000 were evacuated as its thought one of the Caldera craters was about to blow due to uplift.

Its still classified as active and has has 2 Supervolcanic eruptive phases in the caldera's creation. And even today the land is continuing to uplift.

noticed this too. Anyone else think of revelations? When i read they were drilling seven holes i immediatly thought of the seven seals!
In all seriousness though they have openly admitted to not knowing whats gonna happen. the LHC is way less risky than this

Looks as if this has raised it's head again!

Daily Mail article

I think it is mad!

A more recent Thread here (hey,i want Flags too Prettier than Stars )