Because the natural disasters of the “Rings of Power” could not happen in reality
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One of the possible readings of de The Lord of the Rings it is the interpretation in an ecological key. Two years ago, the book of Lorenzo Pennacchi Beyond the real. Lovecraft, Machen, Meyrink, Smith and Tolkien: five sculptors of universeshe analyzed love for nature traceable in Tolkien’s works. In particular, the essay underlines the many elements that in the British author’s fantasy refer to the natural world, such as wild nature, cultivated land and above all the ruin of nature itself carried out in places such as the fortress of Isengard And Mordorthe reign of Sauron the lord of evil.
It is therefore not surprising that volcanology is now trying to verify if one of the crucial points of the plot of the new TV series The rings of power, may have scientific validity. And here it should be noted that if you have not seen episode 6 of the tv series it is good not to read further because the plot of the story is revealed.
Warning, spoilers!
In the Rings of Powerthe wicked one Adar diverts a river in the labyrinth of tunnels under an inactive volcano for trigger an explosive eruption and thus transform the Southland landscape into the desolate lands of Mordorgiving birth to the kingdom of the orcs, crucial in the films of the Lord of the Rings (of which the Rings of power is a prequel).
The spectacularity of the scene and its dramatic impact has led many (Tolkien’s forums and fans are a very active and very large community) to wonder if behind this fantastic transformation of a landscape, however, there may be some truth and whether explosive volcanic eruptions can indeed be triggered.
How a volcanic eruption happens
Volcanoes erupt molten rock, called magma, at temperatures between 700 and 1,300 ° C. Volcanic eruptions can be effusiveforming lava flows, or explosivewhen large fragments of magma and rock, fine ash and volcanic gases are expelled into the atmosphere. That of “Mount Doom”, or Orodruin ne The Rings of Poweris depicted as an explosive hydro-magmatic eruption, caused by great abundance of volcanic gases in the magma. These eruptions occur when magma comes into contact with water – such as groundwater, oceans, lakes, rivers, glaciers, or sheets of ice – which overheats to vapor. The thermal energy of the magma is thus transformed into explosive mechanical energy in the vapor.
Eruption of the Hunga-Tonga volcano, the animated reconstruction of the explosion
Could a volcanic eruption create a landscape like that of Mordor?
They have been observe many explosive hydro-magmatic eruptions, like that of 1963-1964 of the Surtsey volcano in Icelandthe 2019 eruption of the Whakaari White Island volcano in New Zeland and that of last January of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano a Tonga. To understand what happens when magma comes into contact with water were carried out experimental simulations in the laboratory, using small volumes of remelted lava and similar materials. Such experiments are also useful in understanding how water acts as a coolant in nuclear and other power plants.
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To generate maximum explosive intensity during a fuel-cooling interaction, the ratio of water to fuel (magma in the case of volcanoes) must be optimal, calculated by researchers between 2 and 5, while in volcanology it is between 0.1 and 0.3. If there is too much or too little water, steam is generated, but the explosions are local and small, and the magma cools, fractures and solidifies. Triggering an explosive hydro-magmatic eruption is not easy. Introducing sufficient water into the magma reservoir of inactive or active volcanoes many kilometers below the earth’s surface is impossible, because there are certainly no tunnels similar to those of Mount Doom in fantasy, but only dense and highly compressed rock.
As for the conditions that trigger hydro-magmatic eruptions in nature, it must be said that volcanoes with an active lava lake in the crater do not have a river that feeds them, because the craters are located on the top of the volcano. Again: if pouring water on the surface of a lava lake would produce a lot of steam, this would not trigger strong explosive eruptions, because the water would cause the formation of a cooled solid crust on the lava surface. The only large-scale explosive hydro-magmatic eruptions in nature occurred when significant volumes of magma erupted rapidly through a body of watersuch as groundwater, lakes or oceans, and mixed vigorously with it, triggering an explosive interaction (as in Surtsey, Iceland; Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai, Tonga).
To artificially produce a volcanic hydro-magmatic explosion of this type, it would be necessary to move a large amount of magma from a reservoir deep in the earth’s crust to the surface, propagating a huge network of fractures many kilometers deep. An almost impossible undertaking: in short, even if a contemporary Sauron wanted to use this method to destroy an enemy territory, he would not succeed even using nuclear explosions. Fortunately, or unfortunately, if it is envisaged to create controlled explosions to act on the climate, iAdar’s method in “The Rings of Power” is just a fantasyor rather, just a fantasy.
Geoengineering and climate
It also makes no sense to think of an alternative method to that of Adar for trigger a controlled volcanic eruption. It is true that gases can form droplets of sulfuric acid, creating a haze that reflects incoming solar radiation, causing global cooling of the atmosphere, and huge volumes of fine ash suspended in the stratosphere would reflect solar radiation back to space. However, historical eruptions of moderate size had little impact on global temperature and only large explosive super eruptions could potentially cause a global atmospheric cooling for many years, triggering a major global cooling event.
However, geoengineering proposals to try to control the climate present enormous problems. First of all, as already mentioned, it is physically impossible to trigger eruptions of large volumes of magma. Even if we did, we couldn’t control the amount of cooling caused by a super-eruption. Global coverage of the landscape by thin ash would cause crop destruction, famine and poisoning of reservoirs. The fine ash would also infiltrate machinery, including power plants, causing them to malfunction. What would remain there could be similar to Mordor in terms of habitability and horror, not suited to Middle-earth or Earth.
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