The explosiveness of a volcanic eruption depends on how many gas bubbles form in the magma—and when. Until now, it was thought that gas bubbles were formed primarily when the ambient pressure dropped ...

Scientific American is part of Springer Nature, which owns or has commercial relations with thousands of scientific publications (many of them can be found at www ...

For decades, volcanologists believed that the primary trigger for explosive eruptions was a drop in pressure as magma rises toward the surface. When pressure falls, gases dissolved deep within the ...