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- <text id=93TT2512>
- <title>
- Feb. 15, 1993: When Will It Blow?
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1993
- Feb. 15, 1993 The Chemistry of Love
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- THE WEEK, Page 20
- HEALTH & SCIENCE
- When Will It Blow?
- </hdr>
- <body>
- <p>Gravity could provide clues to the timing of volcanic eruptions
- </p>
- <p> Predicting volcanic eruptions is a notoriously inexact
- science, and no one knows that better than people along the "ring
- of fire" that extends through Southeast Asia. Without warning
- last week the Philippines' Mayon volcano blew up, killing at
- least 68 and driving thousands from their homes.
- </p>
- <p> There is hope, though, that forecasts will improve. In
- Nature, geophysicist Hazel Rymer and colleagues at England's
- Open University reported a possible sign of an impending
- eruption: shifts in gravity. They found that the gravitational
- field around Italy's Mount Etna increased sharply six months
- before it spewed forth in December 1991.
- </p>
- <p> Rymer cautions that gravity data should be used only with
- more conventional forecasting methods. Moreover, the technique
- can be dangerous, since researchers often climb into a volcano
- to take gravity readings. Last month Rymer's colleague Geoff
- Brown died when Colombia's Galeras volcano blew just as he was
- setting up his equipment.
- </p>
-
- </body>
- </article>
- </text>
-
-