Chile… or Middle Earth?
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After 9,000 years of silence, Chile’s Chaitén volcano is erupting with lava, ash—and lightning
The mingling of lightning and ash seen above may be a “dirty thunderstorm.”
The little-understood storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges—just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms.
