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…
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…
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…
Volcanoes make for good sport. Golf comes to mind as an example: volcanoes can provide a great opportunity to improve performance. The summit crater of a volcano is conveniently large, greatly increasing the chance of a hole-in-one. It would look even better if the impact of the ball triggers an eruption, celebrating the win with…
October 12, 1918 was just another Saturday. On the fields of France, the Hundred Days Offensive was turning a war which would now soon end, but leave 17 million dead; the devastation would set the scene for an even worse war to come. Far away, Puerto Rico lay in ruins after a magnitude-7 earthquake on…
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night (William Blake, The Tyger) Lava is lovely. The warm (or hot) red colour gives it beauty, and the intricate movement of a lava flow makes it mesmerizing. But it is at night that the lava really comes to life. What appeared shiny black in the light…
I loved Naples. It is a lively Mediterranean city where there is always something going on. The people are amazing. I was told (a long time ago) by someone whose wife was from there that they were visiting the city, and his wife went somewhere and had told him in no uncertain terms to stay…
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble Do you remember that famous Australia TV soap where everyone in the town helped each other with their mini-crises, such as ‘who took my surf board’ and where the life guard walked around the beach in their swimmers? (I may be getting confused here with…
Lights of the North! As in eons ago, Not in vain from your home do ye over us glow! William Ross Wallace (1819–1881) A repost from 2018 with minor updates Jan 25, 880 AD, was a remarkable night. The Arabian historian Ibn Abi Zar wrote about it more than 400 years later, from the ancient…
The parent is famous. The shock waves of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 reverberated around the world – in the atmosphere, in the sea and in the news media. This was the first large eruption in the era of instant communication. The eruption itself was luckily on an island at some distance from human…