Islands in the stream

In the last few weeks, I have been unusually busy with things decidedly non-volcanic as the world turned quite a bit darker. Regardless I noticed that there were quite a few things going on in the volcanic part of the news, but that did not for natural reasons end up as big news items. One…

What Would Make a VSI 12?

Guest post by Tallis My father and I disagree on a lot of things from religion, politics, career, and more; One of the things we disagree on is the title of worst geological disaster. I believe that title goes to volcanoes while my father believes it goes to earthquakes. This is actually a fun point…

The Current Volcanic State of Affairs

I am taking this opportunity to look at 5 volcanoes that at least I find interesting. I am doing this out of the perspective of the life-curve of an eruption. I find this perspective to be interesting, and I think that it is something that would be both entertaining and informative for our dear readers.…

Ring dyke formation on Taal?

Lately Taal volcano has been showing unsettling signs of a possible imminent eruption, including high sulphur dioxide emissions, small steam-driven explosions, tremor, and somewhat surprisingly, deflation. I think that this is no conventional magma intrusion but rather a very rare type. First of all I should briefly review what happened in 2020.   The events…

Taal in water

Long time no sea… 😀  For those of you not familiar with me, I am one of the “dragons” that lurk behind the scenes.  My main claim to fame is that “I plot stuff.”  I also on occasion have written filler articles when needed.    This isn’t one of those articles… but since I am a…

Big basalt blasts II. Taal

In my last post I introduced the model for a new eruption mechanism/style. I will be referring to these events as big basalt blasts, this is just the silly preliminary name, not its definitive one I hope. So how did it work? I will briefly summarize. First a magma reservoir drains through a lateral eruption…

A Taal Tale

Sometimes, a volcano is nothing more than a hole in the ground. There are beautiful, though deeply eroded, cone volcanoes around Taal: Mount Banahaw, Mount Mariveles, Mount Natib – especially the latter also has a large caldera. But Taal is not like that. It is a lake, with only a little cone sticking out. The…

Taal eruption update

In my previous article I wrote that Taal most likely would not continue to erupt for a long period of time, based on the previous history of the volcano. Obviously Taal decided to go for something not recorded in the historic annals. It is therefore time to take a deeper look at what is going…

Taal Update – Ongoing Intrusion

Guest post from Héctor (DustDevil). There will be a further update either later today or tomorrow as events have changed since Héctor wrote this post. The Main Crater of Taal seems to have calmed down, doesn’t it? However fissures are breaking the ground apart, the river dries, Lake Taal falls and strong earthquakes keep coming.…