Summiting Etna: the Gate of Hell

My own expedition into Etna’s center Jesper Sandberg Introduction I have always been addicted to volcanoes, and that addiction has resulted in many volcanic visits over my last 27 years of life, and I have indeed made many volcanic visits. The highpoint of that was seeing the live lava flows at Kilauea: of course Kilauea…

The Sicilian Affair

This of course was our April 1 story, bringing volcanoes up-to-date with the modern world of ‘alternative facts’. We hope you enjoyed it and that it brought a smile to your face. Any resemblance to any person anywhere in the world is purely intentional. Tune in next year when we will be revealing the volcano…

Volcanic Organs and Gandalf’s Pipe

Back when I was a kid, I had two interests in life, physics and playing music. In music my favourite instrument was the church organ. Over the following years those two interests merged into one as I got interested in how soundwaves form, and onwards into what I usually call waveform theory. Waveform theory is…

The air we breath: the sulfur smell of volcanoes

“The sun became dark and its darkness lasted for one and a half years… Each day it shone for about four hours and still this light was only a feeble shadow… the fruits did not ripen and the wine tasted like sour grapes.” Michael the Syrian, about a 6th century eruption It smells. Sulfur is…

By any other name: the story of the word ‘volcano’

“I remember this mountain. Shaped like a cone, smoke coming out from the top and molten rock flowing down the side. Can’t think of the name – v-something – hold on – no, lost it.” This sounds implausible. Names of uncommon things can easily be forgotten; we have all done it. But not volcano! Most…

Volcanoes and CO2 – continued

In the first part of this post, we looked at magical carbon and where to find it. We now continue to look at how much CO2 volcanoes produce, and how it compares to our own emissions. Who wins the battle? The results of the polls are: A small majority believes that volcanoes produce less CO2…

Volcanoes and CO2

The world we live in has a volcanic history. The continents ultimately came from volcanoes, often volcanic arcs, in some cases several billions of years ago, in other cases more recently. All ocean floor is volcanic, made in mid-oceanic rifts within the past few hundred million years. And the volcanic contributions do not stop there.…

The Friday Update #9 (01/04/2016)

Albert casting a line in Yellowstone yesterday, trying to catch some whoppers! – taken from here   Welcome to another (late) weekly update.  I am sure everyone will agree that yesterday’s big news from Yellowstone deserved a day to be digested. In case anyone did not realize (and many did not), yesterday was April Fool’s day…

The Friday Update #4 (26/02/16)

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…

A new Decade Volcano Program – An Introduction

The current Decade Volcano Program First of all, let me make one thing abundantly clear. This is a list put forth by us as suggestion for a new Decade Volcano program. But, in the end it is the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) that decides if there will be…