Source: Howard Hitchcock

Visiting the Big Island. Part II

Visiting Big Island and seeing live lava at Kahauale a 2 lava flow of Kilauea part 2 Into the belly of the beast Jesper Sandberg Introduction It is hard to describe how incredibly special for me those days in Kilauea were and the insanely strong nostalgia for that. In part two I will take up…

Flores and the Lewotobi eruption

Update 8 Nov 2024 As commented below, NASA has produced a new image and image slider showing the ash cloud from the eruption: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/153549/mount-lewotobi-laki-laki-spews-ash The lava flow running east is the one produced in January-March. The blacker ash covers around 20km>sup>2 in this image. That suggests a volume of 0.01 to 0.001 km3: no more…

Grimsvötn – The Saksunarvatn Tephras

A repost on the past of Grimsvotn, as it seems to be nearing its next eruption, albeit not on the same scale as the one described here! 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…

IMS 54, Palmer Station, Anvers Island, Antarctica peninsula

The Hunga Tonga treaty

Did you know that there is an international treaty on eruptions? In truth, there isn’t. But there is a treaty on nuclear explosions, and there are similarities between explosive volcanic eruptions and nuclear explosions. Banning eruptions would go a bit above the United Nations powers. Could a volcanic eruption appear as a nuclear test? There…

Late Night Icelandic Fireworks

A brief post from Nick whilst we write a more detailed post and to keep the comment thread under control… Just as my head hit the pillow at around 11 pm last night, my phone went doolally… “ERUPTION.” So I dived headlong down the stairs to wake up the PC that I’d only minutes before…

Santa Maria: volcano in denial

Before climate change denial, there was volcano denial. This is the story about a forbidden eruption, the one that was suppressed and deleted from history. It is the one that got away. Blame Iceland. This post had been up for barely one day when events in Iceland rapidly moved towards another, potentially very damaging, Reykjanes…

Þorbjörn on the brink

Volcanoes rarely follow human timescale and human planning. This time it is Þorbjörn that decided to ruin things just after Albert had published a truly nice read about Santa Maria. Þorbjörn better do as told below, otherwise Albert will have words with the volcano in question for ruining his article scheduling.   Background In the…

Santa Maria: volcano in denial

Before climate change denial, there was volcano denial. This is the story about a forbidden eruption, the one that was deleted from history. This is the suppressed eruption, the one that got away. Blame Iceland. This post had been up for barely one day when events in Iceland rapidly moved towards another -and potentially very…

Deception Island: the phoenix rises

Volcanoes can hide themselves in clear sight. We may see a rugged hill or a lake, but may not recognize the lurking danger. A volcano that lacks a conical shape can hide its nature from us. Volcanoes are deceptive by nature. That cone with the steam plume at the top may look friendly, but it…

The Hunga Tonga eruption of 2022

Volcanoes can be quite predictable, in a general sort of way. We know that Grimsvotn will erupt – just not when, although it is fairly likely to be within the next two years. Similarly, Mount Rainier will erupt some day, although this could be centuries or millennia off. Six years ago, we predicted that Mauna…