As has been noted here, little is known about people living near volcanoes which had a VEI-7 eruption. But we do know something about Tambora. The slope of Tambora, on the Sangar peninsula of the island of Sumbawa, was home to the Kingdom of Tambora. The kingdom had been mainly located some distance from the…
Some days ago, a video called my attention on Facebook, a video of a beautiful explosion of Popocatepetl volcano in Mexico. I ended up in a YouTube channel called Volcano Time-Lapse. This youtuber had dubbed the explosion as the perfect explosion, and for a good reason. At night-time, with not a cloud in the sky,…
Introduction Jupiter’s Moon Io is the most volcanic place in the solar system. The most powerful active volcanoes known to exist cannot be found here on Earth, but on Io, a small moon of Jupiter, and it is therefore an enormous fascination for me. Io is a volcanic powerhouse, so volcanic it is very much…
Volcanoes can erupt invisibly. A sudden, swift explosion in an isolated location may be unobserved and still have worldwide impacts. The source of the large eruption of 1809 remains unknown. We still don’t know the culprits of the volcanic climate catastrophe of 536 and 540. The link between the year without summer of 1816 and…
Last article we saw a newborn felsic system, Laguna del Maule, whose so far brief history has begun rather impressively, with possibly two VEI-6 eruptions, a number of smaller plinian eruptions, and some sizable lava flows. In the article before that one, we saw Domuyo, a monster volcanic system that is very lazy. It could…
In the previous article I was talking about the volcanoes in Argentina, in the Andes, near the latitude of Buenos Aires, only a little more to the south: Payún Matrú, Tromen, and Domuyo. Now we cross the border into Chile, into the Maule Province of Chile. Here, almost exactly along the topographical divide between the…
There is a group of volcanoes that I’ve always wanted to talk about. It is a surprisingly little known, little studied location. However, about a decade ago, thanks to advances in technology, one of the volcanoes jumped from being practically uncharted to becoming moderately famous, when using satellites scientists were able to detect inflation around…
Land is precious. The saying goes ‘Buy land – they don’t make it anymore’. We need the land to live on, to grow our crops, to socialise, work, educate, and all other things that makes human life worth living. Even our touch phones won’t work under water. With a growing population, the pressure on the…
Is this the strangest egg in the world? The shell contains no egg white, yoke or embryo, nor even chocolate. No bird will ever hatch from it. Instead it is filled with a stony mineral. Which creature laid it, and what was expected to emerge from it? The only thing that comes to mind is…
We hope you have enjoyed this April-1 story. Yes, this was completely made-up and as of this morning the blue lagoon is again blue and normal service has resumed. The story was designed by Lughduniense who also made the tourism poster which we happily donate to Iceland under a CC-by-4.0 license. Join us next year…
Lava flows come in all sizes. The Reykjanes eruption produced flows of several kilometers length. Other volcanoes can do ten times that length, although we do not have a lot of recent experience with such long flows. Flood basalts can do hundreds of kilometers, and volcanoes on Venus manage thousands of kilometers – helped by…
Recently, Mjf and Tallis Rockwell commented in the café that several volcanoes in the Aleutians were undergoing unrest. After some thought, I realized that the Aleutians are within the United States territory, in Alaska, and that means they are very well monitored, and that this data is accessible. So I decided to dive into it.…
We owe our existence to our ever-changing and yet passive climate. Unlike other planets in the universe, here it doesn’t rain molten glass or frozen acid, nor does it have super sonic winds destroying everything in its path. However, the climate isn’t without fault as it is sensitive to very small changes with atmospheric composition.…
The Martian is a fascinating book by Andy Weir. It is about an astronaut who is accidentally (we hope) left behind on Mars during an emergency evacuation. What follows is a struggle for life, where science, engineering and agriculture(!) are used to keep the astronaut alive long enough to allow for a rescue attempt. There…
The southern shores of Europe have seen their share of geological conflict. Africa is moving north, and Europe is in the way. There have been many skirmishes, which have left scars in southern Europe. Africa is an irresistible force and Europe an immovable object. The next phase of this battle will be at Cyprus where…
