Re: mechanism of de-superheating water

On Jan 5, 8:30 pm, Lofty Goat <rlwatk...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Water at a great depth might not be superheated, as its boiling point
will have increased with pressure, but it may still be "supercritical".  
At a pressure of a few hundred atm. and a temp of a few hundred degrees
(I forget the exact numbers) it will behave like steam, but will be
incompressible and still the density of liquid water.

I think you are making "supercritical" too mystical. It will not
"behave like steam" particularly (what does that mean?). It simply
happens that if we increase the pressure enough the phase transition
between water and steam disappears.

Something like the "stirring boiling" happens in supersaturated
volcanic lakes. Hmm... this is equally a misnomer, really, since the
water at depth is not really supersaturated (with CO2, that is), or
need not be; but when something starts the lake stirring, and the
water at depth rises, it _is_ supersaturated under ambient conditions
(there's the useful buzz word again), and boils off CO2. Then the
lake god is angry, and all that breaths air, for miles around, dies.

I guess what "starts the lake stirring" would be a bit of boiling at
depth, so maybe a prerequisite for this event is in fact that the
water at depth is supersaturated, even at depth. But the trigger
event could be a mudslide, for example, even when everything is at
local equilibrium. Once the lake starts boiling, the mixing action is
self reinforcing.
.

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