Risky business; Supervolcano Drilling Plan Gets Go-Ahead

news.sciencemag.org...

The Campi Flegrei Deep Drilling Project was set up by an international collaboration of scientists to assess the risks posed by the Campi Flegrei caldera, a geological formation just a few kilometers to the west of Naples that formed over thousands of years following the collapse of several volcanoes. Researchers believe that if it erupted, Campi Flegrei could have global repercussions, potentially killing millions of people and having a major effect on the climate, but that such massive eruptions are extremely rare.

I sure hope they have a plan in place to monitor the drilling for producing any chance of an eruption.

Since an eruption would have worldwide consequences I would have thought they should have gotten wider approval.

A 'pilot hole' meaning more to come?

It's not nice to fool with mother nature!

500 meters sounds a lot better than the original 4 kilometers originally proposed and rejected by the local mayor.

Something just doesn't sem right about drilling into a super volcano....Maybe it's just me?

reply to post by oghamxx


Hey...uhhh...Earl. You think that, da, bear's asleep.

I don't know, Vern. Why don't you go poke it with that der stick.

reply to post by oghamxx


They could also be "drilling for oil" ? Or doing a mining of some sort without REALLY disclosing its purpose to the mayor. Just a thought.

All I am going to say is that I hope they know what they are doing.

hisz.rsoe.hu...

"A project to drill deep into the heart of a 'supervolcano' in southern Italy has finally received the green light, despite claims that the drilling would put the population of Naples at risk of small earthquakes or an explosion. Yesterday, Italian news agency ANSA quoted project coordinator Giuseppe De Natale of Italy's National Institute of Geophysics and Volcanology as saying that the office of Naples mayor Luigi de Magistris has approved the drilling of a pilot hole 500 meters deep. The project’s organizers originally intended to bore a 4-kilometer-deep well in the area of the caldera late in 2009, but the plan was put on hold by then-mayor Rosa Russo Iervolino after scientists expressed concerns about the risks."

Maybe HAARP has been used properly and minerals worth digging up have been detected under the ground?

Trying to see if there is a precident or protocol for this sort of thing. Maybe puterman can help if he is around?

This is a bit like russian roulette , If there is pressure building and the create a weakness in the magma chamber they could trigger an eruption ,Lets hope they have done there homework on this

I think this is a great idea, wonder what drilling technique they will use I hear pumping a pressurized mixture of oils and chemicals works wonders






/SARCASM

reply to post by Mufcutcakeyumyum


Dr Erik Klemetti is of the opinion that this will not cause any problems (Back in 2010)

Drilling into Campi Flegrei: It seems like the story about the potential hazards of drilling into Italy's Campei Flegrei will never die. Researchers lead by Dr. Giuseppe De Natale plan to drill 13,000 feet into the active magma chamber (they hope) of the caldera system and I've posted twice about how this is not likely to prompt an eruption.

Source: Big think

Your host is Erik Klemetti, an assistant professor of geosciences at Denison University who spends most of his professional time thinking about magma.

I think you can trust what he says even though he is a scientist!!

me thinks , this is the best idea that they EVER CAME UP WITH..

asumming of course that they want to wipe out the human race .

or we can also hope that the magma or lava hardens as they drill.

Well I don't post much on the volcano threads, although I read them regularly...thank you to all involved with them. But.......

I read this and two things occurred to me. Firstly....I guess they (the scientists?) think it's far enough away from Vesuvius, which is still active, if I'm right, not to be a problem? And secondly.....have you been to Naples? Seen Naples? How insanely overbuilt and overcrowded it is? Any kind of volcanic anything that affected it would be a nightmare....no way in hell would they evacuate properly. I'm very suss about all of this...it just doesn't feel right at all, but that's maybe just my oversensitivity. I hope.

Isnt there another cadera somewhere far from such a dense population?
What is their fall back if they trigger anything?Rome?
Perhaps Paris?
The urge to pay with fire has been with mankind since forever....i guess well just never learn.........

Campi Flegrei is a cool area. When I was a teen in the 80's my father was stationed in Naples, Italy. We lived up north of Naples in a place called Pinetamare. I used to ride a school bus that carried us right through Campi Flegrei. Here's what it looks like from the air:



You can see all the old craters of the old volcanoes.

Vesuvius is way on the other side of the bay:



However, don't let the distance fool you. What concerns me about what they are proposing to do, is the fact that right in that area is a active sulfur vent, known as Solfatara. Even after almost 30 years, I can still remember the smell of it when we'd come out of the freeway's tunnel in the Agnano area.



You can see it also quite well in my first pic.

Wow. This is just stupid.

How is it that humans are still at the top of the food chain? Maybe not for long...