EDIT - OK ladies and gents, 10 hours in I'm burnt out and going to call it a night. I know the US is just getting their teeth into this, so I'll come back and have a go at reposnses again in the morning. Please do check the thread before asking any more questions though - we're starting to get a lot of repeats, and there's a good chance your question has already been answered! Thanks again for all your interest, it's been a blast. ZeroCool1 is planning on doing an AMA on molten salt reactors on Friday, so keep your eyes out!

FYI, the pee and vulcan questions have been asked and answered - no need to ask again.

I'm an experimental volcanologist who specialises in pyroclastic flows (or, more properly pyroclastic density currents - PDCs) - things like this and this.

Please feel free to ask any volcano related questions you might have - this topic has a tendancy to bring in lots of cross-specialism expertise, and we have a large number of panellists ready to jump in. So whether it's regarding how volcanoes form, why there are different types, what the impacts of super-eruptions might be, or wondering what the biggest hazards are, now's your opportunity!

About me: Most of my work is concerned with the shape of deposits from various types of flow - for example, why particular grading patterns occur, or why and how certain shapes of deposit form in certain locations, as this lets us understand how the flows themselves behave. I am currently working on the first experiments into how sustained high gas pressures in these flows effect their runout distance and deposition (which is really important for understanding volcanic hazards for hundreds of millions of people living on the slopes of active volcanoes), but I've also done fieldwork on numerous volcanoes around the world. When I'm not down in the lab, up a volcano or writing, I've also spent time working on submarine turbidity currents and petroleum reservoir structure.