Awesome pictures

From my inbox this weekend…

Two of nature’s most spectacular forces produced an incredible brew in the skies ofChile as a volcanic eruption met a lightning storm. Tons of dust and ash from the eruption of the Chaitïn volcano poured into the night sky just as an electric storm passed overhead. The resulting collision created a spectacular sight as lightning flickered around the dust cloud amid the orange glow of the volcano.

The eruption was all the more spectacular because the Chaitïn volcano,800 miles (1,290km)south of Santiago,has been dormant for hundreds – if not thousands – of years. The Patagonian volcano began erupting on Friday and the 12-mile-high plume has left vast tracts of land coated with a layer of ash.

And from National Geographic:

May 6, 2008After 9,000 years of silence, Chile’s Chaitin volcano (pictured on May 3) is erupting with lava, ash and lightning (full story).
Since the volcano awoke on May 2, it has continued erupting intermittently, blanketing the area in ash and forcing more than 4,000 people to flee.

The mingling of lightning and ash seen above may be a “dirty thunderstorm.”
The little-understood storms may be sparked when rock fragments, ash, and ice particles in the plume collide to produce static charges just as ice particles collide to create charge in regular thunderstorms.

I can’t help but think of creation when I look at images like this…  Lightning, clouds of dust, fire… It had to be an unbelievable sight to see the world come into existence.

Thanks, God, for giving us opportunities like this to see your awesome power over nature.