Pavlof having a Hekla moment

Hekla is famous for its short run-ups prior to eruption, typically the run-up involves a smattering of small earthquakes for an hour or so and then it goes boom. Pavlof has the same nasty habit of not announcing upcoming eruptions. At beast you get a few harmonic tremor episodes in the hours prior to an…

The Late Friday Update #8 (26-03-16)

Welcome to a rather later than usual Friday update.  A rather unfortunate collection of unrelated events meant I did not have an opportunity to sit and write this until half past eight on Saturday evening.  But my tardiness allowed the volcano gods some extra time to put on a show and they obliged with increased…

Grimsvötn – The Saksunarvatn Tephras

It is sometimes hard to understand the size of the Icelandic volcanic systems. We often read statistical things like “Half of all the ash in Europe” and “One third of all basalt produced in the world” and we still do not really get it because we lack a point of reference. Instead we time after…

The Friday Update #7 (18/03/16)

Welcome the #7 of our weekly eruptions report.  This week appears to have been a fairly quiet one according to the VAAC reports with fewer eruptions reported than previous weeks. Map showing the areas of operation of the various VAAC bodies. Continuing the recent trend, London, Toulouse, Anchorage, Montreal and Wellington all have no reports in their respective…

Kawah Ijen and Active Mitigation

Imagine that you are Gunung Merapi and that nobody cares about you since there is much more famous volcano named Gunung Merapi. And to make things worse it is also located in Java, Indonesia. So, you think long and hard and through a few well placed eruptions you create a side vent with a very…

The Friday Update #6 (11/03/16)

Welcome to another Friday update. I thought I would start with a brief look at the reports that get filed around the world and how to interpret them and translate them into something that can be easily read and understood. These reports can look quite daunting when you first look at them, but these are…

Jurassic escarpment in central Saudi Arabia

Volcanoes of Saudi Arabia

The rocky desert stretches as far as the eye can see: a fascinating vista, forbidding and seemingly unending. Distant hills shimmer in the heat and glare of the Sun. There is beauty here but it is on an inhuman and unearthly scale. The land has been baked bone-dry by many years of sun, heat and…

The Friday Update #5 (04/03/16)

Welcome to another Friday Update! This week also concludes the first month’s reporting.  I hope everyone is enjoying the series so far! I have enjoyed been heartened greatly by everyone’s comments.  I was unsure how the series was going to be received by everyone and It appears that this apprehension was unfounded. I have enjoyed…