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Volcanoes are inefficient at building islands. It would be as if I wanted to build a wall, so I started dumping bricks on the ground. Eventually there would be a big pile of birkcs about as high as a wall. But if I just stacked the bricks, I could make a fine wall, and even bigger, and faster, using
less bricks.
Currently undersea volcanoes just spill willynilly onto the ocean floor. I propose that a large cylinder be constructed in a 20-30 mile radius around undersea volcanoes. If the water were then evacuated, lava would follow the path of least resistance upward, rather than push aside all that heavy deep water. One would then have a neat cylinder rising up off the seabed. After reaching the surface, lava could be allowed to gradually mound up, then spill over the sides, resulting in a beautiful mushroom-shaped island.
This would be a costly investment, but the return would be a pristine (really pristine) piece of tropical island paradise for the developer to parlay into profits galore.
Surtsey
http://www.watson19...erve.co.uk/surtsey/
Needa Moeba needa watcha mora TVa. Surtsey looks pretty green to me, and it's younger than I am. "So far, twenty species of plant life have been found on the island, and twenty species of bird nest there." Presumably an island in the Tropics, where the plant life is designed for island hopping amd iguanas have shown up on new habitats after only five years, would become photogenic even faster. [DrCurry, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
More on Surtsey
http://www.vulkaner...tsey/esurtmenu.html
The plants section is nice. It sort of looks like the Scottish Highlands to me. And there are midges! The "fossils on Surtsey" is a cool little squib. [bungston, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 06 2004]
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The result would not be "a pristine...piece of tropical island paradise" for several million years. Until erosion has done its thing, the island will be nothing more than a barren, smoking wasteland. However, I hear that tourism does fairly well in Hawaii, so feel free to give this a go. |
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You're out there somewhere Beer Barren, and I'll find you. |
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Umm, perhaps the lava needs
weak spots and vents due to the
uneaven heaving through the
ocean. Otherwise you could form
one solid cap which could blow up
into one Earth shattering kaboom.
It is not unheard of for a volcano
to send up one or two cubic miles
of land into the air. Luckily, none
of us will be around to see that
and perhaps none of our children
will be around to see the
aftermath. |
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While I'm all in favor of terra-forming, I think you'll find a tall thin island a very unstable affair. Look at the history of pyramid building - it took them several goes to come up with the optimum angle for the sides, and the earlier attempts collapsed. |
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Maybe that is what happened to Atlantis! Mushroom shaped islands toppled over after everybody ran to one side. Maybe they are still lying on the ocean floor. |
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But who wants a perfectly circular island? And if you have the technology to build a "large cylinder...20-30 mile radius around undersea volcanoes", why not just build it yourself? |
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Re Surtsey - nice link from [Curry]. I did not realize it was eroding so fast, though. As far as building the island de novo with Nozzle technologies, you gotta have something to build it out of - nothing better than hot lava. Well, that might be arguable. The nozzle folks might have to go for help from the outfit that builds [Worldgineer's] 3 billion mile black hole lasso. |
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It's not really that tall and thin - a 2 mile cylinder 20-30 miles across looks like a yogurt lid! |
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Also, using a 144 TSF number for the commpression steangth of concrete, a 20 mile radius, and a 2 mile depth, and assuming that the seafloor does nothing but suport it in the upwards direction,
(20*3/2(size))*6,000(psi)/2,000(commpression stength)=90 feet thick*a safty factor of 4*=360 FEET THICK AT BASE. |
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Why do people even attempt to relate mathematical concepts and equations to these cornball ideas? |
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You'd have to fix the tube to the seabed pretty good, or the sideways pressure of the lava would infiltrate beneath it and it would float upwards. Lava is pretty dense. I suppose you could make the tube out of iron or something, something that wouldn't melt though. |
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On the topic of using lava to create things, I'm sure I saw something about some town that was under threat from a fairly low viscosity flow, where they sprayed the encroaching lava with water to get it to form a barrier. It ended up heading out to sea and forming a new natural harbour. |
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[Zircon], I don't think melting would be a problem. The tube would be surronded by water, which would bleed off any excess heat. |
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