clhs sciblog

Stephen McNutt was studying seismic data from a 1992 volcanic eruption, and noticed strange spikes in the data. He figured out it was picking up lightning strikes, so now he had to get help from physicists studying lightning. They set up special devices that picked up lighting data around a volcano that was acting up in 2009. When it actually erupted the team found something very peculiar, there was data for lots of lighting – 20 to 30 minutes of it. This is way more then found in a lightning storm. This lightning was some that they have never seen before. Read more here.

This discovery of the new lightning will surely open up new paths for lightning physicists since they don’t know much about this volcanic lightning. They are figuring out the similarities between volcanic lighting and thunderstorm lightning. This is not a very life-changing discovery, but it is a very interesting and thought-provoking one.

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