Word: ash
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Dates: during 1970-1979
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Thera, which erupted in 1500 B.C., blew the top off the Greek isle of that name and destroyed a civilization. Vesuvius, which came to life in A.D. 79, buried the town of Pompeii and its inhabitants under tons of lava and ash in hours. When Indonesia's Krakatoa exploded in 1883, it killed 35,000 people and released with a single blast the energy equivalent of 20,000 Hiroshima bombs...
...fresh season of volcanic activity has begun. On Japan's northern island of Hokkaido last week, thousands of acres around Mount Usu lay under a cover of gray ash, and Usu continued to steam and rumble ominously. Italy's Mount Etna has erupted for the third time in a month, sending a stream of lava three kilometers (two miles) down the mountainside and shooting a pillar of flame and smoke 450 meters (1,500 ft.) into the air. Both provided evidence that, regardless of progress in other areas, man is still powerless to control the fires beneath...
...pressures and triggering repeated earth tremors that rocked Hokkaido. Finally, on Aug. 7, the 725-meter (2,400-ft.) Usu awakened with a roar like that of a bomb. A huge black cloud soared to a height of 12,000 meters (39,000 ft.). A dense shower of gray ash and chunks of porous, rock-like pumice poured out of the cloud...
...cockpit windows had been cracked by volcanic shrapnel. Though no casualties were reported on the ground, everything within a two-mile radius of Usu was covered with more than a foot of debris, and even Asahikawa, a city 100 miles away, was dusted with a fine coating of ash. Rice, maize and potato crops in the area were destroyed. Tourist hotels shut down as residents of the island began digging out. Before Usu rests again, it could throw out much more debris. Japanese volcanologists report that columns of smoke mixed with steam and smelling heavily of sulfur are still rising...
...miles. To make it in the alloted time, Superman would have to travel at a cool 1 million m.p.h. This may be within his capacity, but Miss Lane could never survive. The air friction at that speed would reduce her to a pile of red-hot carbon ash and cruelly terminate her affair with our red-caped hero. Finally, it is unlikely that Superman and his lady love would even stay in earth orbit at the speed required for their 90-sec. trip round the world. After all, spacecraft orbit the earth at 24,000 m.p.h. Heaven only knows where...