Introduction (Albert) Iwo Jima is famous. The battle between the US and Japanese forces are well remembered – by both sides. Before the war, about 1000 people lived here. After the war, none. There is a military base only. The beaches are filled with rusting hulks of ships, sunk in the long battle. And that…
The only truly dead volcanoes are the ones whose existence we have forgotten about. The Netherlands is not known for its volcanoes. There is a volcano with a Dutch name: Beerenberg, an impressive stratovolcano on Jan Mayen, but the volcano itself is in fact Norwegian (another nation not known for its volcanoes). But dig down…
Welcome to our April-1 story which has the untruth, the whole untruth and nothing but the untruth. Nothing in here is real. Although even that is not true. The mentioned rocket propulsion methods all exist or are under development. Even the rocket railgun launcher, which we carefully made up for this post, suffered from a…
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 of course was our annual April-1 breaking news. We hope you enjoyed it! This was a communal effort from the VC admins. The ideas came from a brainstorming session, the all-important images were sourced by Lughduniense and Gaz who had infiltrated ITO with a side order from AI and the text was filled in…
A repost on the past of Grimsvotn, as it seems to be nearing its next eruption, albeit not on the same scale as the one described here! It is sometimes hard to understand the size of the Icelandic volcanic systems. We often read statistical things like “Half of all the ash in Europe” and “One…
I’ve never played poker but I already know that I’d be terrible at it. I’m good at reading people but terrible at keeping my mouth shut when I am excited. I’m the type of guy to scream “I’ve got a royal flush!” if I were to get one. A royal flush, consisting of a King,…
This is a repost of a summary by Hector, of the previous round of Reykjanes eruptions, a millennium ago. (The post is not as old as that, though. It was written during the first Fagradalsfjall eruption, at the very start of the new fire season.) The discussion includes two of the three Svartsengi eruptions of…
By Jean-Marie Prival, doctor in volcanology and founder of kīpuka magazine Like other natural disasters, volcanic eruptions can have an impact on civilizations. Of course they can annihilate them, but they can also contribute to their economic development by providing a valuable resource (obsidian, for example). Finally, they can influence their culture, giving rise to…
I’ve been tracking Chiles-Cerro Negro for almost 10 years now and it’s been an interesting ride to say the least, full of great highs and terrible lows. My odd relationship with this volcano is going to be on pause and I will be exploring other volcanoes. As such this will be the final article on…