The little part here is highly metaphorical, or perhaps I should say challenged in regards of prominence. The volcano in question is once more Nishinoshima. Back in 2013 when it rumbled back to life it was all the rave, but nowadays I bet that even most volcano afficionados have missed the return of the ocean…
Decision taken after the EU expressed concern This was of course our April-1 story, aimed to amuse rather than fool, in these dark days. The idea came from Lughduniense and Geolurking, and images were artfully created by Lughduniense. Carl proclaimed it ‘wonderful’ and Manning was happy to ‘help’. And I just did the writing up.…
Of all the volcanoes of Iceland, the most famous is Hekla. It is one of five recognized stratovolcanoes in Iceland, and of those it is by far the most active. Over the past millennium, there have been around 20 eruptions of Hekla, accounting for 13% of all Icelandic eruptions. There are more prolific eruptors on…
As I am sitting here in Tanzania, I am pondering two small things, one is how on Earth I will get home since my usual route has a closed down border in it filled with armed incompetent soldiers. The other is the virus that has caused my slight travel problems. Before anyone feel sorry for…
38 per cent of all eruptions in Iceland come from Grimsvötn. It is an amazing number: this hidden volcano, invisible and unreachable to all but the most hardy explorer, is among the most active volcanoes in the world. Not the most active: the volcano with the highest frequency of eruptions is Mayon, which has erupted…
Edinburgh – home of the Scottish Parliament, Military Tattoo, Princes Street and gardens, Scott memorial, Murrayfield, Valvona and Crolla’s food emporium, sundry pubs (!), the fringe, volcanoes … eh, volcanoes? Surprising as it may be to some people, Edinburgh plays host to a great variety of igneous rocks. The most obvious, and in our case…
The Wrangell Mountains are Alaska’s most secretive volcanoes. We have looked at what they are (post I) and how they may have formed (post II). This area of Alaska has suffered the brunt of the most recent continental collision on Earth, and the Wrangell Mountains are an immense scar from this monumental accident. But there…
As Þorbjörn rumbles on it seems ever likelier that it will erupt. So, to explain what is happening I decided to pull out all the stops and produce a more definitive article explaining the news and a possible future now that Albert has put things into context. So, without further ado, I would like to…
Iceland does it rather well. Over the 1100 years or so since the Viking settlement, it has erupted some 63 km3 of lava, the large majority of it basaltic. A similar volume of tephra was also produced. The East Volcanic Zone is the prime suspect for any eruption, and with good reason: it is responsible…
The Icelandic Met Office has released an Official Bulletin about the possibility for an upcoming eruption at Þorbjörn on the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland. Þorbjörn belongs to a class of volcanoes that I normally like to call Unknownabunga, one of all of those volcanic features in Iceland that pretty much nobody knows anything about, until…
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…
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…
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.…
This will probably become one of the most famous wedding pictures in history. I fear that this accidental picture will create a fashion and that people will try to recreate it at ever more dangerous volcanoes. In this case it was accidental, this wedding was most likely planned for weeks, if not months, prior to…
The Wrangell Mountains are an unexpected treasure in a land of riches. Here are shield volcanoes higher than Mauna Loa, which have grown up over the past 5 million years. It stands alone amidst the crowd. From the Wrangell Mountains, other mountains ranges can be seen in every direction, but none of those are currently…
