Following on from Carl’s latest post on some unrest in Iceland, I wanted to gauge public opinion on who they thought was going to make the headlines proper rather than the usual clickbait nonsense from the bile-spouting tabloids. I hope recent misleading headlines haven’t swayed our visitors into voting for their latest scare stories! Try…
When I planned to write this article about the current states of Iceland I only wanted to write about Katla and Öraefajökull. But, as things turned out a third volcano got my attention. In the end this article will be about how hard it can be for a layman to see what is important and…
In the previous post, we read about the birth of Surtsey. It was a famous eruption, which taught us how quickly and unexpectedly new land can form. We have since seen similar eruptions elsewhere as well. Nishinoshima is a small and isolated Japanese island, 1000 kilometers south of Tokyo. An eruption started just off its…
(A repost, originally written by Carl, November 13, 2013. The post has been expanded from the original.) Tomorrow, the fourteenth of November, will be the official birthday of Surtsey. In a way it was a triple birth. First of all it was the birth of the Island of Surtsey, it was also the birth of…
There is more to Flores. The island is spectacular in any case. The Portuguese explorers called it Cabo de Flores (Cape of Flowers) because of the red-flowered flame trees, dotted between the palm trees of the north coast. The landscape is varied, from low-land savannah to volcanic rain forest. It is not as wet here as…
It is far harder to write about a large eruption when it is at home. Many of my readers know that Guatemala City is my second home, and that I have my family and relatives there. On top of that this hit’s home harder since my wife is one of the medical doctors fighting to…
A Kilauea/Puna update has been appended at the end of the post Distance makes the heart grow fonder. Volcanoes are best loved from far away. The excitement of live lava is best viewed on a screen and not through the window. Of course, actual distance is good, but distance in time is also often deemed…
In Hawaiian folklore, Pele is vengeful and unpredictable. Her habitation is well known: Kilauea leaves little doubt about where Pele lives. But you never know where she may appear next. She shares this habit with Kilauea. It has a clear summit and all the action stems from there. But where the action will be next…
Update May 8 No major changes. The lava pond in Kilauea is now reported as 220 meters down, and may still be dropping. The most recent images suggest it is still going down. Below 400 meters there would be a risk of ground water getting into the hole with phreatic consequences, but so far there…
Volcanoes spring predictable surprises. Ever since Puʻu ʻŌʻō began to inflate it was clear that a new break-out was brewing. The 61-G flow had been in decline for many months: the spectacular ocean entry had ceased some time ago, and the flows had withdrawn to within a few miles of the origin. That is typical…