As most of us are aware, a lava lake appeared on the crater floor inside Santiago Crater on Nicaragua’s Volcan Masaya back in December 2015. This however wasn’t the first time Volcan Masaya hosted an active lava lake, Masaya has had a history of having a lava lake appear and disappear over the centuries and it…
A little while ago there was a short interview published with Professor in geophysics, Páll Einarsson. In the interview it seemed like he was stating that Bárdarbunga, Grimsvötn, Hekla and Katla all were preparing to erupt shortly. First of all let me state that I deeply respect Páll as a geophysicist, problem is just that…
The signs are everywhere. In some places, huge stones are found lying on the land, in a place where no rock exists. In other places, deep scratches in the stony surface, all pointing in one direction. U-shaped valleys are found in hills, a shape which rivers don’t do. To the readers of the landscape, it…
This is an opinion piece about earthquakes, volcanoes and court cases. Last week we learned that a group of relatives to the victims of the 2014 Mount Ontake phreatic detonation that occurred at 11.52 on the 27th of October. Before I start I will say that my heart goes out to the families of the…
It was a spring without voices. On the mornings that had once throbbed with the dawn chorus of robins, catbirds, doves, jays, wrens, and scores of other bird voices there was now no sound; only silence lay over the fields and woods and marsh. (From Rachel Carson: Silent Spring) The history of life on earth…
Volcanoes affect life. That is as true for volcanoholics as it is for other life forms. As Bjarki pointed out, the puffins on Bogoslof are not going to be impressed, when returning to their nesting holes to find them all gone, blown up to bits or filled with ash and lava. They will be affected…
Being considered the world leading authority on something is probably more of a curse than a blessing. All of a sudden you have a reputation to defend and everyone will be annoyed with you when you do not agree with their interpretation about what is happening. To top it off there will be a not…
Physiology has a dog; physics has a cat. Pavlov’s dog was a sad animal, lying in its cage with wires attached both inside and out, alive but not as we know it. I know – I have been in his lab when the place was called Leningrad. The dog was still there, or at least…
Why on earth am I using the term ”debunked” about a piece of equipment that is used by scientists across the globe? The answer is quite simple, it is when laymen start interpreting them that they are overused, or used in ways they were never intended. And this causes a plethora of faulty reasoning and…
Volcanoes are often inconveniently located in isolated and unpopulated regions. Of course, some of these regions are unpopulated precisely because of their volcano, or instead of unpopulated are depopulated, but that is a different story. When an area is devoid of people, there tends to be a reason. Modernity looks for and finds cheap and…