planet

Pyroclastic density current

GeologyEarth systemsPlanetary science

A ground-hugging mass of superheated gas, ash, and pumice that races down a volcano's slopes faster than a stormwind during a large eruption. Hundreds of degrees hot and moving at lethal speed, it incinerates everything in its path and buries the rest under tephra - exactly the kind of phenomenon that destroyed the Mangkwan homeland.

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