Chapter 10

I knew this ... how could I explain it to Josie?

Volcanoes are just a natural way that the Earth and other planets have of cooling off and releasing internal heat and pressure.

Volcanoes erupt because of density and pressure. The lower density of the magma relative to the surrounding rocks causes it to rise (like air bubbles in syrup). It will rise to the surface or to a depth that is determined by the density of the magma and the weight of the rocks above it. As the magma rises, bubbles start to form from the gas dissolved in the magma. The gas bubbles exert tremendous pressure. This pressure helps to bring the magma to the surface and forces it in the air, sometimes to great heights.

It's sort of like the bubbles of gas in a bottle of soda. Before you open the soda you don't see many bubbles because the pressure in the bottle keeps the gas dissolved in the soda. When you open the bottle the pressure is released and the gas bubbles leave the soda. If you shake up the bottle first, the soda gets pushed out by the bubbles of gas as they rush out.

Everybody has done it. The soda bounces around in the back of the pickup and there's always an idiot who just has to have one NOW. It's best if you're at the lake or have access to an immediate shower or a garden hose; otherwise ... it's a sticky day. Somebody is always going to pop a top. Count on it.

A string or chain of volcanic islands can be caused by tectonic plates and if the plate is cracked or just thin and weak, there's a good possibility that the magma is closer to the surface and that's called a hot spot. In a tectonic event, the plates that make up a planetary surface move ... some sliding under and some sliding over another plate.

Loris, the home of the E-Peshawari, is often in conjunction (close proximity) of the satellite, Morg and because both celestial bodies are moons of an enormous gas giant, a planet that may or may not have a very heavy core (center), the simple mass of the giant has a humungous gravity along with the gravity and mass of a pair of counter rotating moons the size of earths it stands to reason that the forces are tremendous. Enough so that the moons are always flexing and the flex causes heat.

The weak spot caused by the magmas proximity to the surface is like the pop top of the soda can ... and some damn fool popped ours. The movement that slid our volcano away from the magma hot spot opened the soda can. Our island had been the cap or plug.

If the tectonic movement hadn't happened ... it would be the end of Josie and yours truly. There was going to be what geologists call An Event; witness our steaming volcano.

I tried. The explanation became more and more confusing. The event, while not at all unusual, normally takes millennia ... so did my discourse: After a while I noticed a certain glazing of the eyes and a blank spot where Josie used to be. So I stopped.

Josie said, "Shit happens."

"Yup." What else could I say?

"Let's go see what the annex looks like." The annex being the island that stopped our northwest movement.

The annex had a very old mountain ... a past dormant volcano. Dormant long enough that centuries of erosion had left a stalwart core of columnar basalt. The southern slope of the block was reasonably gentle so we climbed it and walked out to the northern edge. The whole mass had stopped on the very edge of the abyss. There was NO beach. It was easily understood that a couple more miles of travel would have dumped us in damn awful deep water.

Not my idea of fun.

We were several hundred feet above the ocean and Josie looked out to sea.

"Shit! Pirates."

And sure enough ... a medium sized motor vessel was approaching. The huge flag was black and imposing.

The boat was still quite aways out to sea on the north side of the island and would have to carefully navigate the new gap between our island and the new one. Stinking volcano tossed rocks all over the place. The volcano made a mess and the water was black with ash and particulates. If they didn't have an echo-sounder, they were going to have lookouts and a leadsman in the bows.

"Shit ... back to the shore! Right now. We need to retrieve our gold!" We rushed to the mostly destroyed block house, loaded what we could and retreated up the mountain to our cave hideaway.