Rock, rock, rock There are only three types of rocks. This may be surprising, seeing no two rocks are the same and geologists use a never-ending series of names for these rocks, from abelsonite to zykaite. Names are what makes geology so hard. Henrik has written about gem stones, in a highly recommended post. But…
From all of Us to all of You: A happy Christmas and a Volcanic New Year! Victoria Island Our story begins and ends in the far north of Canada. The sea between northwestern Canada and northwestern Greenland is filled by a series of ancient islands. In winter the sea is deeply frozen, and the islands…
It began on 24 May, 2015. Unannounced, unnoticed and unforeseen, in the middle of the night Wolf Volcano suddenly erupted. For all its fame, volcanoes on the Galapagos are not well monitored. After all, this is far from anywhere, so remote that not even the Polynesians found the islands. Its fame comes from its very…
This post is about the Tarawera Kaharoa eruption, and shows that it happened in June 1306. But it is a long story, connecting places as far apart as Taiwan, Ecuador and the Antarctic Peninsula. Enjoy! Large volcanic eruptions throw out their ash and gas into the atmosphere and forget about the mess. They are heavy…
It was a quintessential English village, with simple houses along streets and fenced cottage gardens of precisely 100 m2 each. This is what the heart of England, the Cotswolds, looked like. Perhaps 85% of the population was local; the others were distant immigrants. The people were farmers and workers in the local flour mill. But…
After Iceland, there was La Palma. It could have been the Azores, of course. There are more than just two volcanic archipelagos and islands in our youngest ocean, the Atlantic Ocean. But it was La Palma. Could we have seen it coming? Eruptions at La Palma are about ten times less frequent than at Iceland,…
Background Askja is a lesser known major Icelandic volcano. The north volcanic zone (NVZ) where it is located is not as touristy as the east (Bardarbunga, Grimsvotn), the south (Katla) or the southwest (Fagradalsfjall) volcanic zones of Iceland, but it should not be ignored. The Krafla rift eruption here lasted (intermittently) for nine years, from…
During August 2021, reports came in about an eruption in the ocean south of Japan. The volcano was new to me: Fukuto okanoba. It sounded like something from star wars. It was a friendly explosion, meaning no one was inconvenienced by it. The submarine explosion had produced a tephra raft 60 km long, plus an…
Who doesn’t dream of escape? Perhaps you have a mind-numbing job, a repressive social environment, or a damp and cold house. It may be an escape in (and from) a computer game, trying to reach the exit while being chased by your real-time friends becoming virtual enemies. Sometimes we need to escape from a dream,…
Over the past weeks, the Fagradalsfjall has settled into in almost predictable routine. There are regular cycles of eruptions and interruptions. During the interruption, the tremor goes quiet. Nothing is shaking or moving on the drum plots. Over several hours, there is a slow build-up of the tremor. Lava begins to return to the crater…