"…largest non-nuclear explosion ever."

how big was Halifax?

Rrright … talking out of my backside here. 😮

Hm. That would put Helgoland in front I guess – 6800 tonnes of bombs and ammo.
A lot of these giant explosions are not really a single explosion, but more like serial.
They say Helgoland was big enough to show up like an earthquake on seismographs as far as the Schwarzwald.

Okay according to that it was about 2700 tons. Minor Scale was 4000 tons

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Minor_Scale

I remember reading about it when they did it back in the day. Started with a gigantic fiberglass dome filled with the liquid explosive and had all kinds of things set up around it. One of the things that stands out in my mind was a subscale Midgetman hardened mobile launcher to see if it would flip.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_largest_artificial_non-nuclear_explosions

how big was Halifax?

Very big! Here are the figures, almost 2000 killed.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halifax_Explosion

Nay, the largest conventional man-made single explosion is still Halifax 1917.
Helgoland in 1947 was also quite sizeable.

how big was Halifax?

Nay, the largest conventional man-made single explosion is still Halifax 1917.
Helgoland in 1947 was also quite sizeable.

And even in terms of size that list is anything but accurate. There are *far* larger volcanoes, the Andes are full of examples that dwarf any of the mountains on that page (including active). What about the Hawaiian shield volcanoes? Klyuchevskoy and Elbrus in Russia? To be honest I’m not quite sure what metric the site is using to rank them. It’s not VEI (volcanic explosivity index) of the biggest eruption, it isn’t death toll either and it sure isn’t size.

IMHO the supervolcanoes are of dubious relevance, no such eruption has happened in historical times. The next best thing is Tambora which is quite interesting in that the mountain actually survived the cataclysm as a meaningful peak. Krakatoa, Santorini and the Supervolcanoes ended up as calderas!

EDIT: Well, if we’re talking about indiviual explosions perhaps the Krakatoa eruption comprised the largest SINGLE event, as you say. If Tambora released all that energy in multiple explosions, spread out over many hours while Krakotoa concentrated most of it into a single one, then that might technically make Krakatoa the largest explosion. Although no significant differences between the course of both eruptions is apparent from written descriptions I’ve read it is noteworthy that the sound of Krakatoa’s explosion was heard further away (4000km vs. 2600km).

Can you imagine what that thing must have looked like going off? 😮

And even in terms of size that list is anything but accurate. There are *far* larger volcanoes, the Andes are full of examples that dwarf any of the mountains on that page (including active). What about the Hawaiian shield volcanoes? Klyuchevskoy and Elbrus in Russia? To be honest I’m not quite sure what metric the site is using to rank them. It’s not VEI (volcanic explosivity index) of the biggest eruption, it isn’t death toll either and it sure isn’t size.

IMHO the supervolcanoes are of dubious relevance, no such eruption has happened in historical times. The next best thing is Tambora which is quite interesting in that the mountain actually survived the cataclysm as a meaningful peak. Krakatoa, Santorini and the Supervolcanoes ended up as calderas!

EDIT: Well, if we’re talking about indiviual explosions perhaps the Krakatoa eruption comprised the largest SINGLE event, as you say. If Tambora released all that energy in multiple explosions, spread out over many hours while Krakotoa concentrated most of it into a single one, then that might technically make Krakatoa the largest explosion. Although no significant differences between the course of both eruptions is apparent from written descriptions I’ve read it is noteworthy that the sound of Krakatoa’s explosion was heard further away (4000km vs. 2600km).

Cool sites………I stand corrected……..just that on the prog “10 things about volcanoes” on BBC2 the other night stated that Krakatoa was the largest single explosion ever!!

http://www.scarborough.k12.me.us/wis/teachers/dtewhey/webquest/nature/10_largest_volcanoes.htm this site is only for the size of volcanoes not in the way that they destroyed themselves. Krakatoa dissapeared in almighty explosion not in multiples as the others did…

A225HVY

I think you will find that the largest non nuclear explosion ever was when Krakatoa blew its top early in the morning of May 20, 1883:eek:

A225HVY

#5

http://www.scarborough.k12.me.us/wis/teachers/dtewhey/webquest/nature/10_largest_volcanoes.htm

And that’s not taking “supervolcanos” into account.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano

I think you will find that the largest non nuclear explosion ever was when Krakatoa blew its top early in the morning of May 20, 1883:eek:

A225HVY

1,350 tons? Not even close to the biggest. (Although maybe at the time it was).

u right sir.
22 days ago in Albania,3500 tons…u can see a mushroom too and the clouds moving up

http://it.youtube.com/watch?v=8BVjAiAwhFc

And the largest conventional explosion in World War 2 occurred at Fauld.

exmpa

1,350 tons? Not even close to the biggest. (Although maybe at the time it was).