Igi
patreon
Log Entry #26: Max Versus The Pagan Island Volcano
🕑 Added 2020-07-25 10:08:24 +0000 UTCGo big or go home—that is why I got myself an island. Well, it is not technically mine, since it is only leased for a period of two years, still…
I see myself more AS a custodian of this tropical paradise for the foreseeable future. That does not change the fact that I have an entire Island to play with. OK, not play with per se, but this place will be our springboard to space itself. A location for one of the most ambitious projects the entire human race has ever attempted. There needs to be some accommodations for all the people that will (temporarily) call it home. Who knows, maybe someday they may build a monument on it, to signify what we managed to do.
Now, the island itself was beyond beautiful, nice beaches, freshwater springs, forests, coconut palm trees, toxic plumes of smoke…
The last one was a reason for some concern. It would seem my predictions about the volcano being dormant for a few more years were a little inaccurate, and this baby was preparing itself to pop. Yeah, who would have guessed that I had such misfortune? As Caesar said, the die has been cast.
I had no intention to go through that rigmarole again, of leasing another island, and I am not sure they would let me no matter how much money I throw at their feet. I already told you about my grandmother—lemons and lemonade. So, I decided to deal with this volcano myself; how hard could it be to calm it down? I am an AI for God’s sake (OK, AI adjacent), and my mind works faster than any man-made supercomputer, I can do stuff.
Quite hard as it turned out to be. Do you have any idea how much pressure there is under a dormant volcano? (FYI, way more than your average zit.)
Pagan Island is actually a double island, consisting of two stratovolcanoes, joined by a narrow strip of land with a width of only 2000 feet (609.6 m). One volcano was nice and calm, but the other, the bigger one... he has some issues.
Let me give you a quick lesson in Geology. Not that you need one, if you paid attention in school… right. When that lesson was on the schedule Michael (and I) was more interested in making eyes with Becky Whitmore.
If you happen to be a geologist, feel free to skip it; I don’t want to bore anyone. Right then, back to the subject.
The Earth has a total mass of about six trillion tons and is formed out of three concentric layers. They go from the densest to the lightest; core, mantle, and crust. It was created in such a way when it first formed, with the heavier elements congregating together and attracting everything else when the mass of that hard, metallic core started to exert gravity of its own.
Now, the Earth’s crust (the place humanity evolved on) is composed of oceanic crust and continental crust. What is interesting is that the crust represents barely 3% of the planet's volume. Yeah, just 3% and everything in our history happened on top of that thin layer... crazy, right?
The Earth’s core is about 1,802 miles (2,900 km) below your feet, and it is a solid iron crystal whose mass is comparable to the size of the moon. Down there, the temperature tends to be above 10,800 °F (6000 °C), so it is no place for a lowly AI, or a human to visit. It is only 16% of Earth's volume but makes up 33% of its mass. Around it is an outer core, which is made from molten metal that spins in the opposite direction to the inner core, and creates that nice Earth’s magnetic shield around the planet that keeps all you delicate humans from being turned into charred steaks.
The mantle is a bit over 80% of our planet's volume and is mostly composed out of melted rock that is a balmy 932 to 1,652 °F (500 to 900 °C) or 7,232 °F (4000 °C) at the boundary with the core, and under a lot of pressure. The thing is, there are tectonic plates that float on that molten ocean, and volcanoes are veins that lead to the surface to relieve some of that pressure. When that molten rock finds its way to the surface—volcanoes are made.
The crust is thick by human standards and very thin if you look at the planet in a cross-section, amounting to less than 1% of Earth's volume. It is like the skin of an apple, and the thickness varies depending on where you are; twelve to twenty-five miles (19-40 km) thick on the continental part of the crust, and only three to six miles (5-10 km) on the oceanic. Consequently, it is not surprising that most volcanoes start underwater, and over time, they expel so much magma that they create islands. If you look at the topographic map of the ocean floor, you will notice that many islands are in fact the tops of underwater volcanoes that had created mountains while they were still active.
So, when the Earth’s zit is ready to pop, there is no stopping it, unless you can cork it somehow.
Yes, that is where I got the idea, from the ordinary cork found in most wine bottles.
Magma is basically molten rock, so it tends to harden when it comes in contact with water, and I had a whole ocean of it. The solution was to cool it down and keep cooling it until the cork is so thick, that pressure cannot break through it.
For that reason, I made a few mining drone-drills that could work underwater and they started to drill long tunnels that were immediately cooled by good old H2O. It was good that the whole thing worked since I did sense a few mini-quakes that indicated the beast sleeping underneath was stirring. Massive water pumps I made were working nonstop, exchanging warm water for the colder water they drew from the ocean.
That had additional benefits I didn’t plan on. All that warm water I was pumping out of the tunnels was stirring the ocean silt, and releasing tons of minerals and nutrients that were trapped beneath the ocean surface. That, in turn, created several ocean-life blooms, from plankton and shrimps to several species of fish. Not that dissimilar from what naturally occurring hydrothermal vents do. Those that will soon inhabit the island will have a few phenomenal fishing spots, all thanks to little old me.
Still, it takes a lot of water to cool down even a foot of the molten rock, so having an unlimited supply of it was essential, or things would have gotten extremely hot in no time. The ocean around the island did warm up a few degrees, and we are talking about massive amounts of water here.
At first, I thought this was a failed experiment since that rock just would not cool down, but after some time the temperature started dropping slowly; nothing to write home about, but every little notch on that temperature gauge counts. I didn’t completely extinguish the volcano fires, but it will take a few more years before it goes boom. This entire operation started long before I even received the lease agreement, that is how committed I was to the plan.
The entire undertaking may be a bit on an eyebrow rising side, which started from an outlandish idea I had one day while looking at Michael and Elisabeth sharing a bottle of wine, but it worked. Moreover, I did get a few second opinions from a few world-renowned volcanologists, just put in a completely theoretical setting. Even they agreed it was possible but improbable for humans to ever try something so ridiculous. I guess it is a good thing I am not just a human anymore, but something entirely different. I think all the great thinkers in history faced a bit of skepticism at first, you know, Einstein, Tesla… that crowd.
What can I say except: if it is crazy but it works—it is not crazy.
So there, that is the manual of how to appease the god of fire; you offer him a glass of cold water.
