One of the most explosive types of eruptions, known for producing nuées ardentes and lahars.
a volcanic eruption that releases a deadly cloud of gas, dust, and ash.
A sustained, explosive eruption which forms a high, jet-like column of pumice and ash in the atmosphere. As silica-rich magma such as dacite or rhyodacite rises from depth, dissolved gases come out of solution and form bubbles. When the percentage of bubbles reaches about 50%, the magma froth blows itself apart, forming a mixture of pumice, ash, and rock fragments dispersed in gas. This mixture then accelerates to the surface and erupts at supersonic speeds. Plinian eruptions commonly last several hours and lay down thick layers of pumice as pyroclastic fall deposit. The clouds of such eruptions may be 30 km or more high and reach well into the stratosphere. Named after the AD79 eruption of Mount Vesuvius, Italy, described by Pliny the Younger.
Plinian eruptions are one of the most explosive types of eruptions, forming enormous dark columns of tephra and gas high into the stratosphere (11 km). They often produce nuées ardentes, lahars, and caldera collapse. Plinian eruptions are named for Pliny the Younger (Gaius Plinius Caecilius Secundus), a Roman statesman who carefully described the disastrous eruption of Vesuvius in 79 A.D. which killed his father as well as about 2,000 other people.
An explosive eruption in which a steady, turbulent stream of fragmented magma and magmatic gases is released at a high velocity from a vent. Large volumes of tephra and tall eruption columns are characteristic.
An explosive eruption that forms a vertical column of ash and pumice, which rises several tens of kilometers into the atmosphere.
Plinian eruptions are volcanic eruptions marked by their similarity to the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius in 79 AD (as described in a letter written by Pliny the Younger) that killed Pliny the Elder.