It seemed to come out of nowhere. In the midst of a quiet interlude, after the hugely damaging La Palma had ended, when the hugely touristic eruption at Fagradalsfjall failed to re-appear, and the hugely underwatched eruption at Kilauea continued to be underwatched, whilst we were waiting for Reykjanes (which some had predicted to recur…
After Iceland, there was La Palma. It could have been the Azores, of course. There are more than just two volcanic archipelagos and islands in our youngest ocean, the Atlantic Ocean. But it was La Palma. Could we have seen it coming? Eruptions at La Palma are about ten times less frequent than at Iceland,…
Background Askja is a lesser known major Icelandic volcano. The north volcanic zone (NVZ) where it is located is not as touristy as the east (Bardarbunga, Grimsvotn), the south (Katla) or the southwest (Fagradalsfjall) volcanic zones of Iceland, but it should not be ignored. The Krafla rift eruption here lasted (intermittently) for nine years, from…
We have had quite a ride. The eruption began unseen, on March 19. The new fissure opened on April 5, after the initial double cone had begun to wane. The new fissures sprouted a series of cones, mostly twinned. By May, all twins had exterminated one of the siblings, and the survivors had battled for…
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…
Today is the 10 year anniversary of the Tohoku earthquake. The M9 off the coast at Sendai, Japan, was impressive enough by itself, but the main impact came from the huge tsunami that followed. I remember it well. My lecture the previous day had been on the physics of tidal waves and tsunamis. I had…
When a year ago Thorbjorn was inflating and seemed at risk of erupting, we put out a post to describe the volcanics of the Reykjanes peninsula. The front picture of the post was of a small cone no one had ever heard of. And now, a year later, that cone is at the centre of…
The current swarm at Reykjanes Peninsula that has been going on since the M5.7 NW of Krysuvík on Wednesday at 10.05 declined over the last couple of days. Today it became reinvigorated with 10 earthquakes above M4. At the same time the earthquake swarm go reinvigorated signals was detected pointing towards movement of volcanic fluids…
And now, volcanoes have gone quiet biding for a better time magmatic heat remains reliant but waits before its final climb Pele sits and stops the passage -magma, not now, just hold, delay the world outside has lost its vantage there are no crowds. wait until another day A world retreats in trepidation planes are…
We live in a time of volcano famine. Eruptions are hard to come by, and many scheduled events have been postponed until after covid. And the travel restrictions pose insurmountable problems for volcano watchers. By the time we have flown to the imminent eruption, spend two weeks in quarantine in the VC dungeons isolation ward…