It is sometimes hard to understand the size of the Icelandic volcanic systems. We often read statistical things like “Half of all the ash in Europe” and “One third of all basalt produced in the world” and we still do not really get it because we lack a point of reference. Instead we time after…
Welcome the #7 of our weekly eruptions report. This week appears to have been a fairly quiet one according to the VAAC reports with fewer eruptions reported than previous weeks. Map showing the areas of operation of the various VAAC bodies. Continuing the recent trend, London, Toulouse, Anchorage, Montreal and Wellington all have no reports in their respective…
Imagine that you are Gunung Merapi and that nobody cares about you since there is much more famous volcano named Gunung Merapi. And to make things worse it is also located in Java, Indonesia. So, you think long and hard and through a few well placed eruptions you create a side vent with a very…
Welcome to another Friday update. I thought I would start with a brief look at the reports that get filed around the world and how to interpret them and translate them into something that can be easily read and understood. These reports can look quite daunting when you first look at them, but these are…
The rocky desert stretches as far as the eye can see: a fascinating vista, forbidding and seemingly unending. Distant hills shimmer in the heat and glare of the Sun. There is beauty here but it is on an inhuman and unearthly scale. The land has been baked bone-dry by many years of sun, heat and…
Welcome to another Friday Update! This week also concludes the first month’s reporting. I hope everyone is enjoying the series so far! I have enjoyed been heartened greatly by everyone’s comments. I was unsure how the series was going to be received by everyone and It appears that this apprehension was unfounded. I have enjoyed…
Science should be “sexy”. Once we had decided to write an article on Olympus Mons, we began to consider how to present it in a manner that would appeal to our readers. The regular science article is usually a rather monotonous enumeration of facts, figures and equations and thus heavy to digest for the average…
Welcome to another Friday update, after last week’s sad news of the death of one of our founding members (http://www.volcanocafe.org/in-memory-of-sissel-skramstad/) we have received some positive news. Expressen, Sweden’s largest evening newspaper has conducted a short interview with Henrik and following that, they have run two front page stories featuring articles from VC. Firstly, they…
This far, the expedition had been a highly successful failure. Five weeks into the exploration with three weeks of intense survey had brought a wealth of data, but not what they had come for. Olympus Mons or Nix Olympica, the Olympic Snows as it was formerly known, had stubbornly refused to accede to human wishes.…
Last night a new star was lit in the heavens above us. It is a black day for us here at Volcanocafé. A few weeks ago one of us suffered a major heart attack and had to be put in induced coma. After weeks of struggle Sissel Skramstads big warm heart lost the struggle and…