How would one calculate the energy of a volcanic eruption?

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

I've been wondering how to calculate a certain feat ever since it was brought up in the VS Battles Wiki. In ScrewAttack Forum's DEATH BATTLE Calculations and Requests thread, I posted this comment:

I have one more based on Godzilla: The Series. How powerful would a volcanic eruption have to be to cause this kind of damage?

Here's the volcano erupting at the end of the episode.

Just in case, here's what the island looks like. It looks like pretty much the entire thing is destroyed.

I never received a response. I want to quantify how much energy a volcanic eruption would require to cause destruction on this scale.

[Gerdzerl]

I honestly don't quite know how to properly calculate this exactly, for a number of different reasons, but I would like to imagine that, at the very least, the energy required to do something this would reasonably be somewhere in the range of double-digit to triple-digit megatons of TNT equivalent, which I believe is about how powerful most volcanic eruptions are in general, if I'm not mistaken.

The mere inside of the volcano itself dwarfed both Zilla Jr and the Giant Mutant Bee ( Zilla Jr., for reference, is about 180 feet / 54.864 meters tall) by a good margin, probably at least by 5 to 10 times. And the outside of the volcano itself is even taller than that. The island as a whole, going by some quick pixel scaling in MS Paint, is roughly ten times the size of the outside part of the volcano's height at the widest points. It's pretty friggin' big.

In other words, destroying an island of that size would probably require a destructive capability somewhere within the range of City Level to City Level+, but possibly within the range of Large City Level / Small Island Level to low end Island Level, which would correspond with single-digit to low double-digit Gigatons of TNT equivalent. 1 gigaton of TNT equivalent = 1,000 megatons of TNT equivalent, btw.

Assuming that both Zilla Jr. and the Giant Mutant Bee were both likely at point-blank of the eruption (or at least, close proximity in general) and thus, likely received a large portion of the blast energy, this would likely give them both (and via powerscaling, likely most Godzilla: The Series monsters in general) some degree of City Level durability. That is, assuming the feat isn't a blatant outlier, of course.

[Breakdown]

I'd consider that an outlier since Zilla Jr has been harmed by things waaaay less powerful than an explosion of that magnitude.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

I'd consider that an outlier since Zilla Jr has been harmed by things waaaay less powerful than an explosion of that magnitude.

Aside from Winter Of Our Discontent's early-series outlier on the opposite end of the spectrum, which can be easily countered by several later durability feats, how much evidence is there that this feat can be written off so casually?

[Gerdzerl]

http://sta.sh/0q160r1ital

Alright, if I did my math right, the energy required to blow apart that volcano individually, not counting the island, which I'll try to do later, should be over 118 Megatons of TNT equivalent. City Level+, basically.

Any suggestions as to how I can improve it?

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

http://sta.sh/0q160r1ital

Alright, if I did my math right, the energy required to blow apart that volcano individually, not counting the island, which I'll try to do later, should be over 118 Megatons of TNT equivalent. City Level+, basically.

Any suggestions as to how I can improve it?

That looks really good! Although, there are a few details which may or may not make this more complicated.

(1) Where does the height of 184 feet come from? According to this image...

Spoiler:

...Zilla Jr.'s height at the tip of his highest dorsal plate is about 225 feet (about halfway between 200 and 250 feet). This would make the calculated sizes bigger.

(2) Zilla Jr. and Queen Bee weren't inside the mouth of the volcano. They fell down a chasm some distance away from the volcano and then made their way to an underground chamber of lava.

[g2vd]

http://sta.sh/0q160r1ital

Alright, if I did my math right, the energy required to blow apart that volcano individually, not counting the island, which I'll try to do later, should be over 118 Megatons of TNT equivalent. City Level+, basically.

Any suggestions as to how I can improve it?

That looks really good! Although, there are a few details which may or may not make this more complicated.

(1) Where does the height of 184 feet come from? According to this image...

...

...Zilla Jr.'s height at the tip of his highest dorsal plate is about 225 feet (about halfway between 200 and 250 feet). This would make the calculated sizes bigger.

(2) Zilla Jr. and Queen Bee weren't inside the mouth of the volcano. They fell down a chasm some distance away from the volcano and then made their way to an underground chamber of lava.

That's simply a continuity problem, 98 and JR are 60 meters tall. the same thing has happened in comic books in the Dark Horse series Godzilla's size was at 100M but in many scenes it looked like he was picking skyscrapers out of his toes, and in the Marvel series which his height is around Showa size presumably he was shown at times to be near 1000 feet tall. 98 had a huge problem with that as well now in some cases the canon height is wrong such as in DAM with Gorosaurus but Zilla is 196.85 feet tall the scenes where he appears bigger is simply the creators forgetting about scaling.

I'd consider that an outlier since Zilla Jr has been harmed by things waaaay less powerful than an explosion of that magnitude.

Aside from Winter Of Our Discontent's early-series outlier on the opposite end of the spectrum, which can be easily countered by several later durability feats, how much evidence is there that this feat can be written off so casually?

Because it nearly destroyed the whole island Jr is just simply very durable to this kind of damage.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

That's simply a continuity problem, 98 and JR are 60 meters tall. the same thing has happened in comic books in the Dark Horse series Godzilla's size was at 100M but in many scenes it looked like he was picking skyscrapers out of his toes, and in the Marvel series which his height is around Showa size presumably he was shown at times to be near 1000 feet tall. 98 had a huge problem with that as well now in some cases the canon height is wrong such as in DAM with Gorosaurus but Zilla is 196.85 feet tall the scenes where he appears bigger is simply the creators forgetting about scaling.

I thought Marvel Godzilla was the biggest incarnation of Godzilla yet.

What if the series simply gave different sizes for the monsters as one of the several things it changed? Which size is more official for Zilla Jr.? Do we use the movie's stats or the series' stats?

EDIT: I think I figured it out. 60 meters is Zilla Jr.'s height measured up to his shoulder in theropod stance, while 225 feet (68.58 meters) is measured up to his tallest dorsal plate. So, @Gerdzerl, you should use 225 feet or 68.58 meters for Zilla Jr.'s height if you're measuring up to the tip of the tallest dorsal plate.

[g2vd]

That's simply a continuity problem, 98 and JR are 60 meters tall. the same thing has happened in comic books in the Dark Horse series Godzilla's size was at 100M but in many scenes it looked like he was picking skyscrapers out of his toes, and in the Marvel series which his height is around Showa size presumably he was shown at times to be near 1000 feet tall. 98 had a huge problem with that as well now in some cases the canon height is wrong such as in DAM with Gorosaurus but Zilla is 196.85 feet tall the scenes where he appears bigger is simply the creators forgetting about scaling.

I thought Marvel Godzilla was the biggest incarnation of Godzilla yet.

You are wrong.

What if the series simply gave different sizes for the monsters as one of the several things it changed? Which size is more official for Zilla Jr.? Do we use the movie's stats or the series' stats?

EDIT: I think I figured it out. 60 meters is Zilla Jr.'s height measured up to his shoulder in theropod stance, while 225 feet (68.58 meters) is measured up to his tallest dorsal plate. So, @Gerdzerl, you should use 225 feet or 68.58 meters for Zilla Jr.'s height if you're measuring up to the tip of the tallest dorsal plate.

Marvel Godzilla isn't the biggest in continuity, I don't know about his official scaling but I believe it was said he was based on Showa scale his size changes massively in panels depending on how the artist drew him. also interesting if you are correct he is tall only 11 meters smaller than ROG, GVB Godzilla up to the dorsal plates though he is still around 60 meters ignoring the dorsal plates.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

also about the book it was just a mistake info books like that make mistakes at times especially older ones.

How do we know it's wrong? How many sources do we have for Zilla Jr.'s size? It isn't unreasonable to assume that 60 meters refers to shoulder height.

[g2vd]

also about the book it was just a mistake info books like that make mistakes at times especially older ones.

How do we know it's wrong? How many sources do we have for Zilla Jr.'s size? It isn't unreasonable to assume that 60 meters refers to shoulder height.

Oh wait, I thought the book said his height was at 184 Feet I got you're comments mixed up sorry about that.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

Oh wait, I thought the book said his height was at 184 Feet I got you're comments mixed up sorry about that.

Alright. Gotcha.

[Gerdzerl]

What part of the volcano would you suggest that I scale this shot off of?



Also, going by that image, I figured out Zilla Jr's height, via pixel scaling:



300 feet / 91.44 meters = 204 pixels.

Zilla Jr.'s height at the highest dorsal fin = 155 pixels.

204 / 155 = 1.31612903

300 feet / 1.31612903 = 227.941177 feet / 69.4764707 meters.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

What part of the volcano would you suggest that I scale this shot off of?

http://img06.deviantart.net/c75b/i/2015 ... 98weii.png

I honestly don't know. Would this shot of a 30-story (I counted) building in the background and the volcano in another part of the background do any good? If not, we might just have to assume the lava chamber can approximate the size of the volcano's mouth. Another volcano in the next episode dwarfs the kaiju similarly, so I don't know, maybe.

[Gerdzerl]

Alright, I did a revised version, and the new yield is just under 34 Gigatons of TNT equivalent: http://sta.sh/010koggina7t

Island Level, basically.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

Alright, I did a revised version, and the new yield is just under 34 Gigatons of TNT equivalent: http://sta.sh/010koggina7t

Island Level, basically.

Jeez! That's a lot higher than I would have expected!
Thanks for doing this calculation. I appreciate it. I know it wasn't easy.

This would skyrocket the power/durability of quite a few of the series' monsters, even Cyber-Zilla due to him tanking Zilla Jr.'s atomic breath better than Jr. himself.

One question. Where did the 200 Megatons at the end come from?

[Gerdzerl]

Alright, I did a revised version, and the new yield is just under 34 Gigatons of TNT equivalent: http://sta.sh/010koggina7t

Island Level, basically.

Jeez! That's a lot higher than I would have expected!
Thanks for doing this calculation. I appreciate it. I know it wasn't easy.

This would skyrocket the power/durability of quite a few of the series' monsters, even Cyber-Zilla due to him tanking Zilla Jr.'s atomic breath better than Jr. himself.

One question. Where did the 200 Megatons at the end come from?

Oh, I was using the cubic kilometer volume of Krakatoa and it's yield in Megatons.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

There seem to be a few problems with the calculation according to the calculation team in the VS Battles Wiki.

http://vsbattles.wikia.com/wiki/Thread:95264#2

It looks like we can't assume the magma chamber is the same diameter as the volcano's mouth. Also, Queen Bee's body width rather than wingspan should be used because her wings aren't visible in the distance. The speed scaling doesn't work for the magma chamber, either, because the Queen Bee was going through a magma tunnel.

[Inferno Rodan]

...It's an outlier, it doesn't matter exactly how powerful the explosion was.

[ZillaJr-KaijuKing]

...It's an outlier, it doesn't matter exactly how powerful the explosion was.

Since we don't have much else to gauge the power of the kaiju of the series, this is pretty much the only concrete feat of destruction we have to gauge the power of that universe's kaiju. The only things effective against them aside from each other was an alien military force millions of years more advanced than humans with energy weapons of unspecified yield.