On Wednesday I was asked to look into the possibility that there had been an eruption on the West Coast of Sweden. It was one of those phone calls that are really confusing and making you wonder if it is you, or the rest of the Universe, that has gone utterly bonkers. Since it was…
A quick overview of my current VCMap project, which can currently be found at http://www.volcanocafe.org/vcmap I would like to start off by thanking Spike Page for being the inspiration for this project. A couple of weeks ago, Spike wrote on Spike’s Facebook page asking for someone to test out a Google Earth file. This file…
There is a weird beauty to the blueprints for the Tsar Bomba design by Babayev-Sacharov-Trutnev. Never before, nor after, have a bomb reached that level of engineering perfection. It is to date both the largest, and the cleanest, nuclear device detonated. Compared to the inherently flawed Ulam-Teller design and its derivatives used by the US,…
Just a quick post with some useful links to resources and feeds to keep up to date with events at Gunung Agung. I will continue to update this as I find/get sent more resources. If you find anything on your travels around t’ interweb can you post it in the comments, please? Official Sources For…
“I remember this mountain. Shaped like a cone, smoke coming out from the top and molten rock flowing down the side. Can’t think of the name – v-something – hold on – no, lost it.” This sounds implausible. Names of uncommon things can easily be forgotten; we have all done it. But not volcano! Most…
Today we welcome a guest post by volcanologist Dave McGarvie. Dave is a senior lecturer at the Open University and studies volcanoes in Iceland and Chile. He can be found on Twitter under the username @subglacial. One of the wonderful aspects of working as a volcanologist is Iceland is that fascinating new puzzles and their…
I’ve been fascinated with the scenario of an active volcano poking above the jungle. Back in 2009, I experienced it when I visited Costa Rica and watched Volcan Arenal for 4 nights at the Arenal Observatory Lodge observing incandescent lava rocks tumbling down the flanks before stopping at it’s jungle base. We are going to…
Ever since I began plotting earthquake data for Iceland and generally for the world (where data is available), I was planning to do a monthly review of the seismicity in Iceland, so we can keep track of it on a monthly basis. Of course, if there is any stronger activity or something unusual happens, usually…
There are a few volcanoes that I do not feel comfortable writing about, and those are volcanoes that are far too close to large human settlements. The reason is obvious, it is far too likely that I will write about an event that will kill a lot of people. There are two ways to increase…
In this land of many volcanoes, one mountain stands out. Few people will have heard of Ontake or Sakurajima – but everyone knows about Mount Fuji. It is the tallest of Japan’s volcanoes, 3776 meters high, with a summit crater which is 500 meter across. The smooth cone shows how young the surface is: this…