Tambo Quemado. The eruption of 1808?

We, humans, are ingenious at finding smart ways to do the impossible. Regarding volcanic eruptions scientists have found a way of figuring out when large volcanic eruptions occurred with incredible precision, large explosive eruptions from anywhere in the world, by looking at ice none less, who would have guessed that? Combined with high-precision geochemical studies…

Eruption at Kilauea

Update: An eruption has started already. Visible in the webcams. The initial outbreak is beautiful and is a must watch: There is a very odd magma intrusion happening at Kilauea right now. How do we know it’s an intrusion? There is very rapid deformation in the tiltmeter at the summit of Kilauea, far beyond what…

Puelche and Calabozos. Calderas of the Maule

Last article we saw a newborn felsic system, Laguna del Maule, whose so far brief history has begun rather impressively, with possibly two VEI-6 eruptions, a number of smaller plinian eruptions, and some sizable lava flows. In the article before that one, we saw Domuyo, a monster volcanic system that is very lazy. It could…

Laguna del Maule. An explosive rhyolite ring volcano.

In the previous article I was talking about the volcanoes in Argentina, in the Andes, near the latitude of Buenos Aires, only a little more to the south: Payún Matrú, Tromen, and Domuyo. Now we cross the border into Chile, into the Maule Province of Chile. Here, almost exactly along the topographical divide between the…

The Argentina volcanoes: Payún Matrú, Tromen, and Domuyo

There is a group of volcanoes that I’ve always wanted to talk about. It is a surprisingly little known, little studied location. However, about a decade ago, thanks to advances in technology, one of the volcanoes jumped from being practically uncharted to becoming moderately famous, when using satellites scientists were able to detect inflation around…

Aniakchak Caldera

The Aleutian volcanic awakening

Recently, Mjf and Tallis Rockwell commented in the café that several volcanoes in the Aleutians were undergoing unrest. After some thought, I realized that the Aleutians are within the United States territory, in Alaska, and that means they are very well monitored, and that this data is accessible. So I decided to dive into it.…

Mauna Loa from 1852 to 1868 – part 1

There has been much talk about Mauna Loa lately. Reason for this is that the earthquake levels have become increasingly elevated in past years, and even more so within the past few months, with some alarming episodes of earthquake activity at the summit. We’ve had two strong swarms coupled with rapid inflation of the caldera,…

Rome’s world’s weirdest caldera

Italy is a fascinating country, and when it comes to volcanology, Italy has been arguably the most influential location in the planet. The first ever detailed description of a volcanic eruption came from Pliny the Younger writing about the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD. Vesuvius was also the first volcano to be watched over…