And now, volcanoes have gone quiet biding for a better time magmatic heat remains reliant but waits before its final climb Pele sits and stops the passage -magma, not now, just hold, delay the world outside has lost its vantage there are no crowds. wait until another day A world retreats in trepidation planes are…
2 posts ago I started talking about the pinnacle of basaltic explosivity, 2 posts later there is no mention of anything bigger than the Tarawera 1886 eruption. The eruption of Tarawera was a relatively common scenario of a dyke intruding below a lake, sure, the one responsible was a giant volcanic system of the Taupo…
In my last post I introduced the model for a new eruption mechanism/style. I will be referring to these events as big basalt blasts, this is just the silly preliminary name, not its definitive one I hope. So how did it work? I will briefly summarize. First a magma reservoir drains through a lateral eruption…
Rhyolite has more silica, this makes it more viscous, more explosive and in turn more dangerous. Basalt is the opposite, fluid, well-behaved, safe. This could be a phrase out of any geology textbook, I can almost feel some readers getting ahead of me and thinking what I am obliged to say. But there are exceptions!…
We live in a time of volcano famine. Eruptions are hard to come by, and many scheduled events have been postponed until after covid. And the travel restrictions pose insurmountable problems for volcano watchers. By the time we have flown to the imminent eruption, spend two weeks in quarantine in the VC dungeons isolation ward…
Carl This post was written by Carl in 2012, during an eruption of Soputan. Some updates have been done and some hindsight has been added. Some volcanoes just can’t catch a break. Imagine for a little while that you are a bona fidé supervolcano. You are the largest of your type on the planet, you…
Guest post from Tallis If you were to ask a volcano enthusiast “What is the most dangerous volcano on the planet?” you’d get a range of answers. From a novice, Yellowstone, from someone who only knows of American calderas, the Long Valley caldera. The generic but not wrong, Vesuvius, Mt Rainier, Campi flegrei, Paektu, Santorini,…
Hawai’i is an amazing place. And not just for volcanologists. This is a world-on-an-island, with (apart from the most accessible eruptions in the world) Mars-sized mountains, pristine beaches, coral reefs, a world class city for shopaholics and night owls, rain forest with world-class mosquitos, desert, archaeology, astronomy, volcanoes, agriculture, flying fish and diving birds. It…
Guest post from Tallis Ever since I was a kid, I’ve always had a fascination with meteorology, Thunderstorms in particular, but the entire science as a whole. I am a self-taught weather person, who has read books, watched lectures and talked to storm chasers about their interests. While volcanoes are almost as interesting to me,…
Volcanoes erupt all the time. It may seem a quiet time to us but that is because most eruptions are small and low impact, and stay below the radar. An excellent daily overview can be found on http://lechaudrondevulcain.com/blog-spotlight-two-column/ As I write this, it lists on-going eruptions at Sinabung, Etna, Stromboli, and Sabancaya. Volcanodiscovery also lists…