Weekend Ash to Pottery Competition

A couple of weeks ago we got an email from one of our readers who is currently studying how to make ceramics and porcelain in Iceland. She was wondering about what ashes might give the best colours. I am not the best geologist around, and instead concentrate on the squiggly stuff on seismometers and bouncing…

Lava rocks! (republication)

While we are waiting for more information (and daylight) on the large Pacific eruption, here is a repost. It complements the previous post on igneousity (for which surely the ig-nobel prize was invented?). Enjoy. What’s in a name. Would lava by any other name smell as sweet? Perhaps that is not the right question: lava…

Was Puyehue Cordón-Caulle really a VEI-5?

That the question even exist is a bit of an oddity in modern volcanology, after all we have known amply how to take ejecta-depth measurements to create Isopac-maps since 1956, more about that below. The reason that this question has prevailed is that there are anomalies in the numbers proven for the eruption, compared to…

Iceland in ashes

I had never seen the Manchester sky so blue. The usual milky white which goes by the name ‘Manchester sunny day’ was gone, transformed into an azure experienced mainly during distant holidays. Great Britain of course has a bit of a reputation. Already the Romans wrote that “the atmosphere in this region is always gloomy”.…

Lava rocks!

What’s in a name. Would lava by any other name smell as sweet? Perhaps that is not the right question: lava is many things, but sweet-smelling it is not. It smells like a rose bush that was doused in some evil sulphurous pesticide and then put on fire. This rose also constantly explodes with a…