Volcanoes are frightening. They can dramatically alter the local landscape, and change people’s live – normally for the worse. The best place to be is far away. But large eruptions can have wider impacts. The ash can cover regions a continent away, and sulphate aerosols can spread at high altitude around the world. The sulphate…
Who’s there? Those are the first spoken words of Hamlet, or more correctly, “The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark” as written by William Shakespeare. In modern English, that’s 13 letters, including punctuation. Under the “infinite monkey theorem” a monkey hitting keys at random on a typewriter keyboard for an infinite amount of time will…
Japan is a major economic power in the modern world. Currently, its economy is the third largest in the entire world and exceeded only by those of the USA and The Peoples Republic of China. But as well as being one of the most economically and technologically advanced countries, Japan is also among the most…
About 50 km from the capital of Manila (pop 1,652,171, urbanised area 22 million+) lies Taal Volcano, near the middle of the 25 to 30 km wide Taal Caldera which was formed by a series of very large eruptions between 140,000 – 5,380 BP, the last of which has been identified as a VEI 6…
For sheer beauty, few volcanoes can match the symmetrical cone of Mayon as it rises almost directly out of the Gulf of Albay, not even mount Fuji itself. Indeed, the cone is considered the world’s most perfectly formed volcano for its symmetry ( David Lee, 2008). Added to that, a beautiful tropical setting, tranquil blue…
What is a better starting point for our proposed list of new Decade Volcanoes than a volcano that operates in a way that almost no other volcano does? As the number ten of our list we hereby present a volcano that equally blends being an artesian well and an andesitic tephra producer of note. Without…
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…
There are reports in local Sumatran newspapers that Toba has a bout of indigestion. Low level volcanic type earthquakes have occurred and in the village of Purasa there is gas and steam coming out of the ground. It is important to remember that Toba currently is in a phase of reconstruction and that it is…