
I now want to know what'd happen if you dropped an H-bomb into a volcano.
I'm prepared for the answer to be "not very much at all, because it'd be destroyed", but hope for something more exciting.
( , Sun 15 Jul 2012, 13:40, Reply)

because of LAVA.
( , Sun 15 Jul 2012, 14:04, Reply)

Since I have no soul, I can only assume that I'd be immune, and so be able to film the whole thing and put it on YouTube.
If I had a camera.
( , Sun 15 Jul 2012, 14:12, Reply)

But with a bit more explosions, I'd imagine.
www.liveleak.com/view?i=a94_1340566754
( , Sun 15 Jul 2012, 14:12, Reply)

The explosives would probably start to burn, then possibly (but unlikely) explode. If they explode then the nuclear material may be spread into the atmosphere. If it didn't explode then probably you just end up with a big radioactive volcano, spewing out radioactive lava for a long, long time.
( , Sun 15 Jul 2012, 14:18, Reply)

My guess is that the explosives'd go, but because there'd be no control over the way they went, the nuclear reaction wouldn't start - so you'd just end up with a lump of fissile material sitting in there slowly melting.
I'd dispute the bit about the particularly radioactive volcano, though: possibly depending on where it is, there'd already be all kinds of radioactive stuff in the magma; and there's really not very much in a bomb. So any difference it makes'd be marginal - a couple of kilos mixed in however many thousand tonnes there is of magma is pretty small beer.
( , Sun 15 Jul 2012, 15:06, Reply)