Which inner child doesn’t like advent calendars! Every day a small window opens to reveal a chocolate, a small surprise, or (less exciting) parts of the nativity story. Luxury ones can be obtained, if needed, but our inner children don’t mind: chocolate tends to be quite good enough. The tradition started in Germany but like…
This may come off as a surprise but the Earth isn’t a sphere, this is a lie forged by the elites to keep us from our true selves, the reality is that our world takes the shape of great rhombicosidodecahedron! Our pathetic brains are incapable of understanding the ∞/0+-5i dimensions in our universe and as…
Some events can cast long shadows. The UK is still talking about the storm of 1987 (‘the worst night since the Blitz’), the winter of 1963, the storm floods of 1953, the London smog of 1952, the Great Storm of 26 November 1703. Other countries have their own stories. But one event in particular still…
Hawai’i is a marvellous place for a seismograph. There is something to see every day. HVO has been at the forefront of this, and had as many as 7 seismometers already in the 1940’s.Their network has been expanding ever since. The instruments are located mostly in the main areas of activity (i.e. Kilauea and its…
Update 8 Nov 2024 As commented below, NASA has produced a new image and image slider showing the ash cloud from the eruption: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153549/mount-lewotobi-laki-laki-spews-ash The lava flow running east is the one produced in January-March. The blacker ash covers around 20km>sup>2 in this image. That suggests a volume of 0.01 to 0.001 km3: no more…
A trivia question: can you name the largest country without an active volcano? Here ‘active’ includes ‘dormant’: it is about volcanoes that have access to live magma and could in principle erupt, even if at the moment it decides not to. Monogenetic volcanic fields, if active, also count. Answers through the comment box – there…
1 million people visit Vesuvius each year. It is a big number which involves a lot of people struggling up the steep and dusty path to the rim. Rather more people visit the more accessible archaeological monument to Vesuvius that is Pompeii: counting those as well brings the total to 2.5 million. It makes it…
Grimsvotn is not just another volcano; It’s a special beast that captivates both Mafic Maniacs and Caldera Crazies. This volcano plays many characters, producing everything from expansive lava flows to basaltic Plinian eruptions but mostly mundane lava flows or irrelevant explosions For me, Grimsvotn holds a special place among other volcanoes, ranking among my…
The activity in Kilauea in the last year has been, A LOT. Not much may have happened on the surface, but underground the developments have been many, including dike intrusions, changing focuses of inflation, and seismic crises. One year has seen a shift from a rapidly inflating Mauna Loa to an overactive Kilauea. It has…
Here is the famous Steppe, the dry grass-land, the never-ending plain stretching across Eurasia from China to Hungary. Rainfall is too limited for trees to grow. The climate is harsh, with hot summers and cold winters. But this hostile land can make a good living for those who know where to find water. It was…
Severe weather forecasting is an exciting science and hobby of mine. Beautiful sights and terrifying storms make it fun. Tornadoes and Hurricanes are particularly incredible to me. A lot of the excitement comes from the fact that no one truly knows exactly what is going to happen during the forecasting portion of an upcoming disaster.…
Jon Steingrimmson was deeply worried. The eruption had been going on for three weeks already. Lava coming down from the hills, flowing down the river valleys and covering the farm land. But it wasn’t the lava that was doing most of the damage (at least not yet – worse was to come). It was what…
Lately, I’ve been busy with a project that has precluded me from posting in VolcanoCafe. I have wanted to post about the ongoing awakening of Kilauea’s East Rift Zone, but that will have to wait for now. Instead, I thought of posting something about what I’ve been working on lately. For reasons, I’ve found it…
Henrik taught us about what he called gemmology – the knowledge of gemstones, which he said was considered to be part of the geosciences and specifically a branch of mineralogy. It is also a subject closely related to volcanology. Many gemstones form deep underground, and rely on volcanoes to bring them to the surface and…
Part 2: The Volcanoes In this part we are touring the volcanoes of São Miguel. I wanted to write a good tour post on these and as told in part one it is meant as an accompany that you read on your phone when you are visiting the island. São Miguel Island consists of six…
