Trouble in Paradise: awakening Mauna Loa

An eruption has started at the summit of Mauna Loa. It has been a long wait! The inflation over the past month was notable, though not exceptional, but it was the drip that made the volcanic bucket overflow. We now need to see what happens. Commonly, eruptions migrate down the rift zone, in this case…

Korean volcanics: the magic of Jeju island

Some nations seem decidedly unvolcanic. They lack the geology and the temperament for eruptions. Take Norway – a no-nonsense nation which prefers a bit of solitude and does not go for attention grabbing. A search for Norwegian volcanoes does come up with some good examples, but these are distant islands which Norway acquired accidentally. Of…

Bawean Island

And then there was a volcano no one has ever heard off. It is on an island that is far off-grid and which takes a 9-hour ferry to get there. (There is a small plane, if you are happy to travel without luggage.) The volcano has long gone extinct. All that remains is this island,…

Mauna Loa from 1852 to 1868 – part 1

There has been much talk about Mauna Loa lately. Reason for this is that the earthquake levels have become increasingly elevated in past years, and even more so within the past few months, with some alarming episodes of earthquake activity at the summit. We’ve had two strong swarms coupled with rapid inflation of the caldera,…

Why is my favourite volcano broken?

Volcanology is filled with moments when you look at your favourite volcano doing something interesting, and you hope that it will erupt. There is no shame to admit it, we are secretly cheering our favourites on towards the inevitable eruption. Time and time again we are though let down by our volcanoes, and if you…

Vesuvius in retrospect

A few days ago, in the VC back-channel, I made mention of something I had seen on a SciChan program. That October is the anniversary of the 79AD eruption. Albert then chimed in with a link to a BBC article detailing the same. https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-45874858 Okay, that’s the second thing about October that is interesting. 25…

Icelantic: growing a nation

Growth is in. Politicians and leaders (not always the same thing) want their country to grow. Nowadays this normally means economic growth: the wish to become more wealthy. It would make those leaders more popular, and may provide them with more resources to spend on whatever leaders spend money on. In the very different world…

Mount Merapi and the temple it dooms

For a brief period this was the nation’s capital. During the war of independence (called a ‘police action’ by the Dutch, in an older echo of some current events), Yogyakarta served as the seat of the Republic between 1946 (the fall of Jakarta to the Dutch) until 1948. Indonesia later rewarded the city by granting…

Westward drift

Continental drift was dead. The idea had been around for a long time. Just a cursory look at a map shows the similarity between the coast lines on either side of the Atlantic ocean. They fit even more precisely when looking at the continental shelf rather than the actual coast line. Even better, the geology…