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Science 26 February 1999:
Vol. 283. no. 5406, pp. 1275 - 1276
DOI: 10.1126/science.283.5406.1275
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Perspectives

GEOCHEMISTRY:
A Slippery Problem with Explosive Consequences

Frank Spera

Water has remarkable effects on the properties of geochemical materials such as magma. The result is that a small change in water concentration can make the difference between explosive volcanic eruptions and less violent ones. In his Perspective, Spera discusses results reported in the same issue by Ochs and Lange on new measurements of the amount of water in molten silicates. The findings will add new insight to the atomic structure of these materials as well as the effects of water on them.

The author is at the Department of Geological Sciences and the Institute for Crustal Studies, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106, USA. E-mail: spera{at}magma.geol.ucsb.edu

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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)