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…
Today, May 22, 2022, it is five years ago. On May 23 2017, we woke up to the dramatic news of a suicide bomber in our home town. It killed 22 people including children. The target was an Ariane Grande concert. The artist later came back for a free concert, in memory of those killed.…
In Part 1 and Part II we went over the current state of Krakatau and its history over the 300 years before the Big One. Now it is time to find out what caused the Big Bang, whether it is a recurrent offence, and to try our hand at the big question: why is such…
In part I, we discussed the geology and current state of Krakatau. Now it is time to look at events before the Big Eruption. Was it hiding in the shadows, or did it make its intentions clear to all? History For centuries before its destruction, Krakatau was a familiar landmark. At least some of the…
Links to Part II and Part III. Other Krakatau posts: Krakatoa: a blast from the past Krakatoa skies: when the Sun turned blue The rise and fall of Anak Krakatau All eruptions have history. Volcanoes may sometimes appear to erupt out of the blue; the mountain may not even have been recognized as a volcano,…
Gunug Agung has had impressive eruptions in the past week. So far, in spite of the publicity, the event has remained relatively minor. We do not know whether these are the initial rumblings and in the next weeks and months there will be far larger explosions, or that this suffices to relieve the pressure inside…
Just after 4pm, the phones started ringing at the Royal Observatory on Blackford Hill. Caller after caller reported seeing the sun. The date was September 27, 1950, and the place was Edinburgh, Scotland. Seeing the sun in Scotland can be a bit of a rarity, but even the Scots knew that the sun should not…
Note: For a blog post on Mount Agung, see http://big-volcanic.com/agung-volcano-nearing-an-eruption-here-is-what-to-expect-from-the-bali-volcano/ This is a repost, originally written in 2015. Small edits have been made, and some new (old) images added. It is one of the most famous volcanic eruptions in history. The loudest explosions ever recorded, dust spreading worldwide affecting sunsets for years, and it occured…