Colombia's Nevado de Ruiz volcano erupted in 1985, generating a mudslide that roared down a river valley at 100 mph and crushed the town of Armero, 46 miles away. More than 23,000 people died. When the townspeople heard the first wave thundering toward them, they fled downstream -- instead of seeking higher ground -- and were buried under a 130-foot wall of mud.
It's the kind of tragedy that may soon be avoidable. While scientists are able to pinpoint -- within a few hours in some cases -- when a volcano will blow, researchers from the University at Buffalo are developing a system that for the first time will also predict a volcano's path of destruction.
And with an estimated 500 million people living uncomfortably close to the earth's deadly pimples, the technology stands to save a lot of lives.
"We hope to have the most sophisticated models of these kinds of flows in the world," said UB geology professor Mike Sheridan. "The bottom line is that it should reduce the loss of life and property."
The team, pulling experts from the university's math, geology, geography and mechanical engineering departments, will create simulations of three active volcanoes in Mexico: Colima, Pico de Orizaba and Popocatepetl. The three-year project was funded by a $1.9 million grant from the National Science Foundation.
The team will use a combination of field and satellite data to determine the range and volume of past volcanic flows -- which may change as dramatically as the landscape with each eruption -- and predict future patterns of destruction. The end result will be an interactive, Internet-based map that will show possible flow paths, allowing town officials to plot evacuation routes and residents to find out if their homes are in a hot zone.
While UB researchers admit that the erratic and capricious nature of volcanoes makes pinpointing exact flow routes difficult, they hope that their combined expertise will bring a new level of confidence to volcano forecasting.
"It's a project that needs a whole range of skills and talents," said Abani Patra, an engineering professor who's programming the school's supercomputer to recreate virtual volcanic disasters.
Math professor Bruce Pittman's job is to write the sophisticated algorithms that will describe the flows of rock, ash and water from the volcano's rim and plot locations of water sources, infrastructure and roads leading to safety. Once the models are finished, the information can be tailored to other volcanoes, he said.
"It's not often that you can say mathematics and saving lives in the same breath," he said.
One of the biggest challenges for local officials is educating the population on how to respond to an emergency. If the Colombian villagers had fled uphill instead of downstream, for example, they would still be alive today.
Most destruction triggered by volcanoes comes not from lava, which is a slow-moving, sticky paste, but from mudslides and pyroclastic flows -- hurricane-force clouds of dry rock fragments and gases that reach temperatures of 1,000 degrees Fahrenheit and abolish everything in their path. Perhaps the most famous pyroclastic disaster happened in A.D. 79, when the inhabitants of Pompeii were suffocated by flows from Mount Vesuvius -- the world's first recorded volcano.
Sheridan is familiar with all three Mexican volcanoes. He climbed the country's most active volcano, Colima, in 1991, withstanding 110-degree heat, localized earthquakes caused by magma rising in the cone, and sulfuric acid that seared his eyes and lungs.
"One of the problems with the Mexican sites is that there are villages tucked way up on the mountainside in the direct line of flow," he said.
Within the next decade, Colima is expected to produce a major eruption on a scale not seen since the mountain blew its top in 1913, generating a 200-foot wall of water and debris. The mudflow could plaster Atenquique, a lumber town situated at the bottom of a deep canyon near the volcano, where the inhabitants are largely unaware of the volcano's 100-year-cycle, Sheridan said.
The UB system -- if it is completed before Colima blows -- could potentially save their lives.
