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This question was prompted to me by my answer I gave to this question. In it I stated that an Earth sized planet would satisfy the criteria if it's oceans were made of glass or at least regions of that scale. Because oceans were used for nuclear testing this got my mind off on a tangent. Now completely ignoring that question it made a thought to mind.

What macro effects would it have on an Earth sized planet to strike an ocean made of a solid chunk of pure glass with a nuclear bomb? I'm guessing that hitting a solid chunk of glass with a strong enough force would cause it to shatter. The cracks that would form would then allow for volcanic eruption to occur.

Because this is meant to be a bit more of a fun question just in terms of the curiosity of how dangerous to the planet it might be I don't have a specific definition of the term nuclear bomb in mind (and I'm not particular familiar enough with them to gauge what would be the best to consider). Feel free to consider the impact of anything within that spectrum.

Mostly I'm honestly curious what sort of energy/force it would take to hit this glass so hard that an immediate volcanic eruption would begin and then what would happen afterwards. Could something on the level of what killed off the dinosaurs accomplish this feat or am I missing something here?

user64742
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  • I think it would be better if you could sharpen the question. Anything from Little Boy to Santa's sleigh is a tad too broad for a single question. – L.Dutch Dec 31 '18 at 09:52
  • @L.Dutch How is me saying that the interpretation of "nuclear bomb" is allowed to be "whatever one considers nuclear" too broad? – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 09:53
  • @L.Dutch "...to Santa's sleigh" you do understand humor right? Santa's sleigh was thrown into that list as a joke... – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 09:55
  • I think the "too broad" part is the open-ended "how dangerous would it be..." which relies heavily on how and where you're measuring the effects. Is this an earthlike planet that's highly populated, or a colony, or are you just going down to take readings while ducking bits of flying glass? – Cadence Dec 31 '18 at 09:58
  • @Cadence is that not what one posts when they wish to know the effects of something destructive? "how dangerous"? – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 10:06
  • @Cadence "Is this an earthlike planet that's highly populated, or a colony, or are you just going down to take readings while ducking bits of flying glass?" I have no idea. It's just a planet. I'm imagining the effects are going to be large enough that the status of who is present is largely irrelevant. – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 10:10
  • @L.Dutch better? – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 10:20
  • How big a bomb wrt the planet? You have two things to consider here: kinetic impact and thermal impact, basically the damage done by accelerating mass at the macro level and accelerating molecules of gas and glass. We assume the planet is uninhabited and sterile, so radiation is not a concern. Now how big the effect will be depends on how big the bomb is compared to the size of the planet. Little Boy (15kT) or an H-bomb (100MT)? On Neptune ($10^{26}$ kg) or Mercury ($10^{23}$ kg)? On Earth-sized planet with a small bomb? – nzaman Dec 31 '18 at 10:57
  • @nzaman I don't know what kind of bomb. Just a nuclear bomb. – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 11:01
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    Considering that the Chicxulub impact was around 100 million megatons https://www.lpi.usra.edu/science/kring/Chicxulub/regional-effects/ while the biggest human bomb was a mere 50 megatons, the answer is "not much". Really, what's under a bomb when it goes off is pretty much irrelevant: glass, granite, water, concrete... all pretty much the same at 100,000,000°C :-) – jamesqf Dec 31 '18 at 19:56
  • @jamesqf but wouldn't a weaker material such as glass being hit in that manner cause shock waves that would shatter the glass deep into the planet - more so than if it had been rock or granite? – user64742 Dec 31 '18 at 21:40
  • @The Great Duck: No. We tend to think glass shatters easily because we mostly see it in thin sheets. But if you hit a large chunk with a hammer, you're likely to just get a conchoidal fracture and some chips. See for instance questions on breaking glass blocks (used in construction) with a hammer. – jamesqf Jan 01 '19 at 04:57
  • @Cadence conchoidal fracture is when the glass turns opaque because of several hundred micro-fractures correct? I was thinking that on a macro scale those would allow lava to seep through. – user64742 Jan 01 '19 at 06:21
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    @The Great Duck: Volcanos don't work like that. https://pubs.usgs.gov/gip/volc/types.html You'd need a sufficiently large impact to punch down near the mantle, which is way beyond the capabilities of any current nuclear device. – jamesqf Jan 01 '19 at 19:48
  • @jamesqf ok but how does this make the question off topic? – user64742 Jan 02 '19 at 01:42

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