PORTLAND, OR (KATU/CNN/RNN) – An Oregon science museum built a 34-foot baking soda and vinegar volcano Sunday in an attempt to break a Guinness World Record.
Assembled from pipes, scaffolding and tarps, the structure hoped to be the world’s largest baking soda volcano.
In order to get the record, the Oregon Museum of Science and Industry had to get a big explosion, so the volcano was packed with 66 gallons of vinegar and 50 gallons of a baking soda-water mixture.
With a crowd of around 3,000 people watching, a reddish liquid sprayed from the top of the structure, according to The Oregonian.
The eruption reached around 6 to 8 feet beyond the structure, OMSI event planner Sonali Shivadsani told The Oregonian.
Shivadsani says she is “100 percent confident” that the volcano set a new world record, though it will take months to confirm.
The previous record for a vinegar-baking soda volcano was set by an English school in 2015. That volcano was 28 feet tall and had a 4-foot eruption.
A science project favorite, the vinegar and baking soda volcano simulates hot lava and gases escaping from below the earth’s surface, according to PBS. Adding vinegar to baking soda creates carbon dioxide bubbles, which cause the “volcanic eruption.”
OSMI built the volcano as part of a celebration of the museum’s featured exhibit on Pompeii, Italy, which was destroyed after the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
Copyright 2017 KATU via CNN. Raycom News Network contributed to this report.
