Volcanoes make for good sport. Golf comes to mind as an example: volcanoes can provide a great opportunity to improve performance. The summit crater of a volcano is conveniently large, greatly increasing the chance of a hole-in-one. It would look even better if the impact of the ball triggers an eruption, celebrating the win with…
October 12, 1918 was just another Saturday. On the fields of France, the Hundred Days Offensive was turning a war which would now soon end, but leave 17 million dead; the devastation would set the scene for an even worse war to come. Far away, Puerto Rico lay in ruins after a magnitude-7 earthquake on…
Tyger Tyger, burning bright,In the forests of the night (William Blake, The Tyger) Lava is lovely. The warm (or hot) red colour gives it beauty, and the intricate movement of a lava flow makes it mesmerizing. But it is at night that the lava really comes to life. What appeared shiny black in the light…
I loved Naples. It is a lively Mediterranean city where there is always something going on. The people are amazing. I was told (a long time ago) by someone whose wife was from there that they were visiting the city, and his wife went somewhere and had told him in no uncertain terms to stay…
Indonesia is a country of volcanoes. An impressive amount of subduction-related volcanoes. The country features four different volcanic arcs, chains of volcanoes above subducting oceanic plates. The most important one is the Sunda Arc, home to way too many famous volcanoes like Toba, Krakatau, Galunggung, Merapi, Semeru, Bromo, Kawah Ijen, Batur, Agung, Rinjani, or Tambora.…
Double, double toil and trouble; Fire burn and caldron bubble Do you remember that famous Australia TV soap where everyone in the town helped each other with their mini-crises, such as ‘who took my surf board’ and where the life guard walked around the beach in their swimmers? (I may be getting confused here with…
Lights of the North! As in eons ago, Not in vain from your home do ye over us glow! William Ross Wallace (1819–1881) A repost from 2018 with minor updates Jan 25, 880 AD, was a remarkable night. The Arabian historian Ibn Abi Zar wrote about it more than 400 years later, from the ancient…
The parent is famous. The shock waves of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 reverberated around the world – in the atmosphere, in the sea and in the news media. This was the first large eruption in the era of instant communication. The eruption itself was luckily on an island at some distance from human…
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…
Due to the ongoing Reykjanes activity, I’ve grown interested in subglacial Icelandic lava flows. When lava is erupted under an ice cap, it tends to pile up rather than flow away. It makes a conical or ridge-like mound of pillow lavas known as a tindar. When lava reaches the surface of the glacier, it starts…