Santa Maria: volcano in denial

Before climate change denial, there was volcano denial. This is the story about a forbidden eruption, the one that was suppressed and deleted from history. It is the one that got away. Blame Iceland. This post had been up for barely one day when events in Iceland rapidly moved towards another, potentially very damaging, Reykjanes…

Santa Maria: volcano in denial

Before climate change denial, there was volcano denial. This is the story about a forbidden eruption, the one that was deleted from history. This is the suppressed eruption, the one that got away. Blame Iceland. This post had been up for barely one day when events in Iceland rapidly moved towards another -and potentially very…

Eruptions to come

Let’s start with a question. Which country do you think has the most frequent volcanic eruptions? Before you read on (or peek below for the answer), take a minute to think about it. You can probably guess that Australia is not a front runner. In fact, only two or three countries readily come to mind.…

Volcan de Fuego 2018

It is far harder to write about a large eruption when it is at home. Many of my readers know that Guatemala City is my second home, and that I have my family and relatives there. On top of that this hit’s home harder since my wife is one of the medical doctors fighting to…

The Mayas and their lack of volcanoes

Alberts latest article was a tour de force of the classic view of Mayan collapses, as it has been perpetuated in classic literature. The general idea is that the large downfalls in the Mayan empires would have been caused by large distant eruptions. This is of course an unfair summing up of Alberts quite more…

Is Volcan Agua extinct?

I’ve had the pleasure of visiting Guatemala three times, the first time was in 2005, the second time was in 2006, and the third time was in 2015, and it was the one thing I’m passionate about which drew me to Guatemala, volcanoes. Now Guatemala has a bunch of fascinating volcanoes but what we know…