On 15 July, a video of an explosive eruption of Erta Ale (Afar Region, Ethiopia) volcano was briefly discussed in the comment section. It was a small ash plume emerging from the summit of the Ethiopian lava lake volcano. It was an unusual development, and some of us had already commented on the possibility that…
People mellow with age. (At least, most of us do.) The emotions of youth become less all-important and less demanding of our attention. Young people feel that every perceived slight needs addressing. The heat goes to the head and mistakes are made. Older people consider more before responding. The Earth, too, went through a youthful…
Report by Jesper Sandberg Forewords 2025 has so far been an exciting year with volcanoes, definitely so with Kilauea which is in many ways Earth’s most impressive volcano. It continues its caldera filling episodes at the previous Halemaumau crater area. If Kilauea keeps going like this for years the whole caldera will be filled.…
After Albert’s explanation of Afar’s volcanic and tectonic past, I will look into this region’s Holocene volcanism, and try to create the first comprehensive volcanic history of this very unstudied volcanic area. I like Afar because the volcanoes are “naked”, what I mean is that due to a desertic environment, the lava is slow to…
Africa is broken. It is being dissected by the famous East African Rift which extends over a length of 5000 km along the eastern side of Africa and seems poised to destroy Africa as we know it. Some say a new ocean will form here. In that case a new name will be needed. Suggestions…
In 1912, Alfred Wegener published his proposal that continents had moved. He presented various lines of evidence, of which the best remembered is the fact that the opposite shores of the Atlantic ocean fit together as pieces of a puzzle. There was much more, including the fact that earthquakes were focussed on the Pacific ring…
The Ethiopian volcanic situation keeps escalating. A viral video is circulating of an eruption from the Dofen volcano: https://x.com/volcaholic1/status/1875137887160672670 To me, it’s an eruption because it’s throwing rocks and it’s on a volcano. It could be phreatic or magmatic. It’s phreatic if it’s driven by heated groundwater, or magmatic gasses from an intrusion, without fresh…
We as humans are pretty egocentric creatures, believing the universe revolves around us, thinking we are God’s or some other higher power’s greatest creation, and clinging to inaccurate ideas and beliefs in order to maintain pride. Fortunately, reality always crushes our delusion and reminds us of our insignificant role in this universe. Men of science…
The largest eruption of the 21st century happened at sea. And it wasn’t Hunga Tonga. The Comoro islands form a forgotten archipelago, somewhere between Africa and Madagascar with about 200 kilometer of open ocean on either side. On the African side the nearest land is the northern end of Mozambique, close to the border with…
As has been noted here, little is known about people living near volcanoes which had a VEI-7 eruption. But we do know something about Tambora. The slope of Tambora, on the Sangar peninsula of the island of Sumbawa, was home to the Kingdom of Tambora. The kingdom had been mainly located some distance from the…