If lava can travel 72mph, how fast can the ashes go when they shoot out of
the volcano?
Nicole Castro
Hi Nicole,
I'm not sure where you got the 72 mph number. I don't think any Hawaiian flows
have ever traveled this fast. Perhaps lava flowing in a lava channel was going
that fast, but the front of the flow covering new ground probably was more like
6 mph. There were some fast flows from a volcano in Africa called Nyiragongo
back in 1977.
But anyway, to answer your question, the ash leaving the vent of a volcano
during a really explosive eruption is traveling at a few hundred meters per
second. In Hawaiian eruptions it is more like some tens of meters per second.
Hopefully these will help answer your question.
Sincerely,
Scott Rowland, University of Hawaii
Other Categories
Other Questions
To VolcanoWorld