We live in scary times. As I write this, one hurricane has left destruction in the Caribbean and is bearing down on Florida. A second hurricane is scheduled to clean up what the first one left standing for some of the worst affected islands. Paradise can come to a devastating halt – and was it…
Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika Nkosi sikelela, thina lusapho lwayo Setshaba sa, South Afrika Imagine. Around you is a sea of sand, stretching out far beyond the horizon. Mirages reflect the cloudless sky, and suggest water where only sand rules. But strangely, a mile ahead a river pushes through the mirages, flowing slowly, a blue ribbon amidst…
A few late votes have still been trickling in, possibly people returning from summer holidays to catch up on their VC. But this is a good time to call the results on our CO2 polls. In total, 200 people voted. The system was set to catch multiple submissions by the same person, although if someone…
This is based on an old post by Carl, The World’s most ill begotten piece of real estate – Part III, which has been slightly reworked. The Chinese have a saying, “May you live in interesting times”. And it is in no way a friendly thing to say; on the contrary it is a rather…
In the first part of this post, we looked at magical carbon and where to find it. We now continue to look at how much CO2 volcanoes produce, and how it compares to our own emissions. Who wins the battle? The results of the polls are: A small majority believes that volcanoes produce less CO2…
The world we live in has a volcanic history. The continents ultimately came from volcanoes, often volcanic arcs, in some cases several billions of years ago, in other cases more recently. All ocean floor is volcanic, made in mid-oceanic rifts within the past few hundred million years. And the volcanic contributions do not stop there.…
Grimsvotn (‘Grim’s lakes’) is Iceland’s secret. Of all its volcanoes, this is the most frequent erupter, exploding as often as every 5-10 year. It also causes jokulhaups with decadal frequency. And worst of all, it is a mass murderer, which has killed as many as a quarter of Iceland’s population. And all of this is…
If you want to get away from it all, this is the place for you. If you prefer to experience your volcanoes in utter isolation, you could not do any better. If you have seen it all, come and see this. Find yourself a globe (for younger readers, this is a historical version of google…
In this land of many volcanoes, one mountain stands out. Few people will have heard of Ontake or Sakurajima – but everyone knows about Mount Fuji. It is the tallest of Japan’s volcanoes, 3776 meters high, with a summit crater which is 500 meter across. The smooth cone shows how young the surface is: this…
The mountain isn’t there. In its place, an explorer will find a double crater in the ground, several kilometers across, with thick ash on one side and an open side into a majestic river valley on the other. The debris is evidence of a violent past but it gives little hint of what was there…