Word: clouded
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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Washington State is not the only place where volcanoes loom. There are explosive mountains in every corner of the world. Late last week, Alaska's Okmok volcano coughed a cloud of ash nearly a mile into the sky, perhaps presaging a period of increased volcanic activity. Near Mexico City, Popocatepetl, a 17,887-ft. volcanic peak, has begun to smoke and churn, threatening 500,000 people who live beneath it. In Italy five active volcanoes are being watched, the most menacing of which is the temperamental Vesuvius. In Japan 86 active volcanoes are packed onto an archipelago smaller than California...
...ways to learn what a volcano looks like than to see Dante's Peak. Though the story line is standard disaster-film fare, the science is generally sound. As the movie reveals, the first debris disgorged by a volcano is often a great gray mass of ash. The opaque cloud, made of pulverized rock and glass, falls like concrete snow on land and buildings miles away and may blot out the sun for days...
After the ash, some volcanoes produce what is known as a pyroclastic flow, a ground-hugging cloud of superheated gas and rock that forces a cushion of air down the mountainside at up to 100 m.p.h., incinerating anything in its path. Other mountains spew that signature substance of the volcano: lava. (On this point Dante's Peak was wide of the scientific mark, concocting a fictitious mountain that produces both substances.) Lava moves at speeds ranging from less than 1 m.p.h. to 60 m.p.h...
...combat the problem, the USGS is deploying detectors around volcanoes so that air-traffic controllers can be alerted when an ash cloud belches forth. While this could go a long way toward making the skies safer, the business of setting up the instruments is going slowly. Currently, the faa, which funds the project, is devoting only $2 million a year to it, barely enough to equip two volcanoes. At that rate, it would take 275 years before all the world's active peaks were covered...
...think there's not enough information out there for students to approach the Ad Board knowing what they're getting into," Allen said. "The board is shrouded in such a cloud of mistery on this campus that I think a lot of students would benefit from knowing more about Board procedure--as would the Board itself...