Scientists Discover a New Form of Lightning

Wow, now we have a new type of lightning. So there is so much of this phenomena that we do not yet understand. What makes this lightning different is the frequency of bolts and the duration.

I hope this discovery helps us understand this phenomenon better.

The lightning observed during the eruption of Mt. Redoubt in 2009, researchers have determined, is an entirely new variety. Using radio antennas, scientists noticed that the bolts were shorter, lasting only a few milliseconds, and much more frequent than typical lightning.

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Mt. Redoubt, a 10,197 foot high volcano in Alaska's Aleutian Range, has been active for a millennia. In the twentieth century alone it erupted four times—most notably in 1989 during an event that spread ash nearly 8,000 square miles.

The research team believes the lightning that occurred during the Mt. Redoubt eruption can be classified as a new type because of the frequency of the bolts and their duration. Thomas commented that "we saw lots of lightning—20 to 30 minutes of lighting...even more lightning than we would typically see during a major thunderstorm."

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Source: www.treehugger.com...

This reminds me of the report a few months ago of the discovery of anti matter discovered around lightning and more recently the discovery of gamma ray bursts being found in Earth's atmosphere .

At times it seems for all we think we know , we truly don't know as much as we would like to think .

Nice find OP'er !

That is seriously one of the coolest pictures i've ever seen in my life. Lightning above an erupting volcano, doesn't get much cooler than that. Great find, S+F.

There is nothing new about that lightning. It's just that there is a lot less resistance in the plume than there is through normal air, which makes the electrical charges 'go off' a lot sooner than they would in a normal lightning storm. Also the debris builds up more charges faster than a normal lightning storm. It's common sense if you think about it.

Once again, the Electric Universe theory explains everything:

Recent observations of volcanic lightning add new support to the claims of electrical theorists, that volcanoes are dynamically related to an electric Earth.

The cause of volcanic lightning is poorly understood. Traditionally, geologists have assumed that the cause is similar to that of lightning in thunderstorms: Tiny particles rub against each other in a turbulent flow of air, and the larger particles, which move slower, are charged to a different polarity from the smaller particles, which move faster. The two groups of particles would accumulate in separate regions, and the voltage difference between them would produce lightning. But this is an assumption that is not supported by theory or the facts. It is part of a general confusion that continues to haunt the sciences of geology and meteorology today.

New discoveries have deepened the mysteries of volcanic lightning. A recent news story reports on a study into volcanic electrical phenomena occurring in the eruption of Mt. Augustine in Alaska. The website LiveScience.com writes: "The lightning in a volcanic eruption occurs because the ash and other debris blasting out of the volcano are highly charged.... Though lightning was known to occur in the debris clouds above the volcano, the researchers found an earlier phase of volcanic lightning that had never before been observed and occurred right at the volcano's mouth just as it began erupting."

In other words, the lightning preceded the supposed “charge separation” process from friction that has traditionally been claimed to occur in billowing volcanic clouds. One of the researchers described this phase of the volcanic lightning as "big sparks maybe going just from the mouth of the volcano up into the column that's shooting out of the volcano, and then some lightning that went upward from the top of the volcano up into the cloud that was forming."

thunderbolts.info...