His treatment in Quantico provoked an eruption of international outrage, with protests from the UN rapporteur on torture and Amnesty International.
What do you say to those who believe Microsoft has behaved arrogantly, as if the government had no right to ask questions?" Perhaps it was the word arrogant that provoked an eruption, for Gates plunged into a five-minute rant memorable less for what he said than for the deep hurt he betrayed.
Voight's fulfilled prediction that an avalanche at St. Helens could provoke a lateral eruption, an eruption from the volcano's flank rather than its summit, attracted the attention of the government of Montserrat.
For all that, it may not take much to provoke another popular eruption.
Inverted current jumps, reproducibly observed owing to an artificial bubble-nucleation site created on the edge of the rotating electrode, which provoked periodic bubble eruption, were ascribed to local concentration changes drastically affecting the current-lines distribution.
Other studies found that pollution or a volcano eruption could provoke the onset of an ice age.
The preceding Palaeocene epoch was also brought to an end, the rocks suggest, by a sudden release of methane.The burp could, of course, have been provoked by the eruptions, so the volcanoes are not off the hook completely.
At higher latitudes, melting glaciers and ice sheets will modify the pressures acting on tectonic plates and volcanoes, potentially provoking more earthquakes and eruptions, while rising sea levels will leave many regions more vulnerable to hurricanes and storms.
A recent eruption, in blogs and beyond, was provoked by two sensitive issues: first, the affirmation that the Tories were likely not to reverse the new 45% rate of income tax for earnings over £150,000, due to take effect in 2011; then the blurted remark from Ken Clarke, the shadow business secretary, that the inheritance-tax cut was a mere "aspiration".
"Jesus, why don't you leave them alone and get out of here?" As if he'd presumed I'd been silenced for good and couldn't believe I was talking again that new question provoked a rather comical double take before the next eruption.
