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Volcanos and Water
火山與水
Firefighters use water to battle a towering inferno.You might wonder if water could also stifle an erupting volcano. Actually, this experiment happens every time a volcano erupts at the bottom of the ocean. What happens when a volcano erupts underwater? We'll find it out on today's moment of science.
消防員用水來撲滅熊熊燃燒的大火，你或許想知道水是否也可以用來撲滅噴發的火山。事實上，每次海底火山噴發就是對此進行的一個實驗。當海底火山噴發時，都發生了什么呢？我們今天就跟隨科學一刻欄目一起探個究竟吧。
Most of the world's volcanic action happens an average of eight thousand five hundred feet underwater. Deep beneath the waves there are an estimated one million volcanos. As with land volcanos, molten lava pushes up from beneath the sea floor at thousands of degrees Fahrenheit.
世界上大多數的火山活動都發生在海平面以下平均8500英尺的地方。在海底大約有一百萬座火山。至于地面上的火山，就是由華氏幾千度的熾熱的巖漿從海底向上沖出而成。
Ocean water can't "put out" the volcano the way firefighters put out a fire, but it does have a profound effect on what happens to the lava once it's out of the ground. The biggest difference between undersea and land volcanos has nothing to do with water's wetness, but with its pressure.
海水并不能像消防員滅火一樣撲滅火山，但是當巖漿沖出地面時，它確實能起到不小的作用。撲滅海底火山和地面的火山最大的不同在于水的壓力，與水的濕度并沒有關系。
At these depths, the water pressure can be two hundred and fifty times more powerful than air pressure at the Earth's surface. This prevents bubbles from forming in the lava, eliminating the likelihood of an explosive eruption like some land eruptions are.
在這樣的深度，水壓可以是地面上空氣壓力的250多倍。壓力可以阻止巖漿中形成氣泡，這也就消除了地面火山爆炸性噴發的可能性。
Instead, lava squeezes out of the ground like toothpaste out of a tube, forming glassy rock formations that look like long, stacked pillows. The pressure is so high that steam never even forms where lava touches water. You could be in a boat over a giant, erupting volcano, and never even know it was there.
相反，巖漿就像牙膏擠出管子那樣擠出地面，形成一道道玻璃般的巖層，看起來就想是一條長長的堆疊的枕頭。壓力是如此巨大，以至于這些巖石接觸到海水時連水蒸汽都還無法形成。因此，你或許就曾經駕船行駛在一個巨大的噴發的火山上而絲毫沒有察覺。
So,you can't put out a volcano with water. But on our next program, we'll find out what happened to a town that tried to do this anyway—and in a way succeeded!
所以，用水不可能撲滅火山。但是在我們下一期的節目中我們將會告訴您一個鎮子曾經試圖這樣做，而且從某種程度上來說，他們成功了！
