Source: The Extinction Protocol - 10/25/12
October 25, 2012 – HAWAII – The past decade of eruptions of Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano may have acted as a pressure-relief valve for neighboring Mauna Loa, according to a new model suggesting two of the planet’s biggest volcanoes connect deep underground. Scientists know each of the two Hawaiian volcanoes has its own plumbing —separate, shallow magma chambers.
Such chambers are the source of Kilauea’s rising lava lake, which is threatening to spill over. But 50 miles (80 kilometers) down, in a part of the Earth’s mantle layer called the asthenosphere, Mauna Loa and Kilauea are dynamically coupled, said Helge Gonnermann, a professor at Rice University in Houston, who is the lead author of a new study showing the link. “It’s like groundwater in an aquifer or oil in an oil reservoir,” Gonnermann told OurAmazingPlanet. “We know that there is melt that extends beneath both volcanoes.
