Re: Hurricanes and solar radiation

"Michael McNeil" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in 
news:[EMAIL PROTECTED]:

> Is there any data on
> how much earth is displaced in an underground nuclear explosion and
> where it goes?

http://nuclearweaponarchive.org/Library/Effects/UndergroundEffects.html

Probably more than you wanted to know. Damn fine website for satisfying
all your nuclear weapon curiosities.

But in a nutshell...using selected quotes from the above site...

  For the first millisecond the growth of the cavity is driven by
  the 'snow plow effect'...At 1 millisecond the cavity, filled with
  vaporized rock, has grown to a radius of 10 m and the shock pressure
  has dropped to one megabar (one million atmospheres)...The cavity
  continues to expand over the next few hundred milliseconds until the
  internal vapor pressure balances the surrounding lithostatic pressure
  (the weight of the rock above). At a depth of 800 m this radius is
  about 45 m, the internal temperature at this point is several
  thousand degrees C...the cavity is lined with about 50 cm of molten
  rock...Over the seconds and minutes following the explosion the molten
  rock drips down to from a layer on the bottom of the cavity, while
  continued cooling causes the pressure inside the cavity to drop below
  that of the lithostatic stress in the surrounding rock, allowing the
  ceiling of the cavity to begin to collapse...Rock continues to fall
  from the new ceiling left by previous rock falls, causing the collapse
  to progress upward...until it reaches the surface and a permanent
  depression called a subsidence crater is formed.

The web page includes diagrams and pictures.

Brian