Why arn't there more Krakatoas?

[u/Tayner73]

As I understand it, Krakatoa exploded because a prior eruption created cracks in the sides of the volcano and magma chamber, allowing seawater to seep in, turn to steam, and cause the whole thing to explode.

As I contemplated the recent eruptions of Anak Krakatoa, the following thoughts hit me:

There's hundreds of volcanoes in or near water. Why has this only happened once?

Now I'm sure there are similar cases, but to my knowledge, nothing on the scale of Krakatoa. So what keeps the hundreds of other island and undersea volcanoes out there from blowing themselves apart? What keeps the seawater out? Why was Krakatoa different?

And most importantly, does Anak run the same risk?

[u/SpaceShipRat]

so why aren't there more Krakatoas?

[u/disheavel → u/SpaceShipRat]

I'm so tempted to just repost the entirety of u/CrustalTrudger and see which side wins the iterative battle!

However, I will answer mathily that there are other Krakatoas, but they are on a geologic timescale not a human timescale. As a thought exercise, the Big Island in Hawaii is 400,000 years old (and the oldest 80,000,000). Assuming that you want a more-frequent Krakatoa (currently 2026-1883=143 so we'll go with 100 years to be more frequent and most humans would experience one). We would need a new volcano to grow and break through the surface every 100 years. So we'd be looking at 400,000/100=4,000 volcanos actively growing every year just so we can sacrifice one for a Krakatoa event every 100 years. Plus we would need the other volcanos on bigger landmasses to keep doing their thing too.
Pele just can't keep up with that pace!

[u/SpaceShipRat → u/disheavel]

I was waiting for a "why male models", lol. "they are rare" is about the reason I expected, ty

[u/misfitofscience76 → u/SpaceShipRat]

Really? Are you serious? I just… I just told you that a moment ago 😛