[ad_1]
The area surrounding Bakony and Balaton Uplands today was once an active volcanic field. This means that there is no volcano as large as Mount Etna, but there are several smaller and more scattered volcanoes in the area. At least in the past. In the Nógrád area, which encompasses the Highlands, we can observe a similar phenomenon.
I usually call these volcano nurseries, you have to think of a field as mole hikes in the meadow, lots of little piles side by side.
– explained Szabolcs Harangi, head of the VTA-ELTE Volcanology Research Group, on the question of the Index.
In such fields, magma always erupts elsewhere and forms a volcanic heap within a few weeks, or possibly a few years.
According to the researcher, this can also be called lazy volcanic activity, because it can take up to thousands of years between two volcanic eruptions, but this is exactly the danger – we don’t know exactly where and when the magma will surface next. time.
In New Zealand, this remains an urgent problem because Auckland was built on a volcanic field that was last active 600 years ago, and it is unpredictable when, in what form, such as explosions or lava flows, it will wake up again.
The mountains of Lake Balaton
These are monogenetic volcanoes that form during a single eruption but are no longer active afterward. Such is the case with Badacsony, which originated 3.5 million years ago.
As far as we know, the first eruptions in the Balaton Highlands of today were eight million years ago, the last 2.5 million years. The Tihany Peninsula preserves traces of its functioning eight million years ago, and the Hegyestű was formed in the same period. After that, for about three million years, nothing happened, and then five million years ago, for example, Mount Kab was born, which was a large shield volcano. The result of the latest activity is Bondoró near Kapolcs and Kopácsi Hill near Szentbékkállá, where you can even recognize the volcanic cone.
There were about fifty small volcanoes in the highlands of Balaton and Bakony, and although it is mathematically possible, we do not think it is realistic to revive the field.
– Harangi says, adding that the members of this volcano kindergarten include typical places like Badacsony, St. George’s Hill or Csobánc.
Their research concluded that they had been active for a few years, but could have produced spectacular explosive eruptions. On the basis of the rocks found at Badacsony and Szent György Hill, it was possible to reconstruct that lava fountains and even lava lakes were formed.
Its current shape, becoming witness mountains, is mainly due to erosion caused by the devastating effects of cold-hot weather, wind and rainfall. The resistant rocks, on the other hand, survived, which is why the well-known basalt organs took shape.
According to Szabolcs Harangi, Balaton Uplands also helps to better understand volcanic field activities, which is especially important because of Auckland, for example. Among the results of the investigation, it stands out that they were able to determine the rate of rise of the magma. According to this, magma can rise to the surface of the Earth’s mantle in just a few days, and this has an important message to make a prediction.
The largest volcanic field, by the way, is in Mexico, with more than a thousand small volcanic mounds. There, in 1943, magma erupted in a corn field, a typical example of how such an event could occur anywhere and at any time.
(Top image: Szent György Hill has massive basalt columns on the side of one of the most characteristic witness hills of Balaton Uplands. Photo: MTVA / Commissioner: Melinda Farkas)
[ad_2]
