Introduction (Albert) Iwo Jima is famous. The battle between the US and Japanese forces are well remembered – by both sides. Before the war, about 1000 people lived here. After the war, none. There is a military base only. The beaches are filled with rusting hulks of ships, sunk in the long battle. And that…
We recently published a post on the Zuidwal volcano, found buried in the Netherlands and becoming a google sensation – google is still working on removing all the made-up images. But in spite of google, there is a real story behind this volcano. It is the story of the North Sea, the sea that could…
Figuring out the eruption history of Afar volcanoes is taking longer than I expected, so in the meantime, I will have to post about other topics. And lately, one that has been present in my volcano discussions, here and elsewhere, has been about caldera volcanoes. It’s nothing new that calderas generate all sorts of admiration…
The only truly dead volcanoes are the ones whose existence we have forgotten about. The Netherlands is not known for its volcanoes. There is a volcano with a Dutch name: Beerenberg, an impressive stratovolcano on Jan Mayen, but the volcano itself is in fact Norwegian (another nation not known for its volcanoes). But dig down…
Over the past 6 years I’ve watched Chiles-Cerro Negro go through 4 different phases of unrest. Like a toxic lover, no matter how much I try, I can’t shake this volcano. I honestly thought I was going somewhere with Grimsvotn and Iwo-Jima but no. Grimsvotn is stable in the sense that nothing has really changed…
A repost from 2016, written by Henrik and part of our series on volcanoes of the American west. There is enough there to make any nation proud! This follows on from the post on Mount Shasta and on Tehama. The more you read about volcanism in North America, the more confused you become by the…
It came as a shock – quite literally. It shouldn’t have, because a recent paper had predicted that the area was preparing for a large earthquake. On 29 July, at 23:25 UTC, the 5th largest earthquake from modern measurements hit the Kamchatka peninsula with a reported magnitude of M8.8. (It is listed as occuring on…
On 15 July, a video of an explosive eruption of Erta Ale (Afar Region, Ethiopia) volcano was briefly discussed in the comment section. It was a small ash plume emerging from the summit of the Ethiopian lava lake volcano. It was an unusual development, and some of us had already commented on the possibility that…
A repost on the region of Lassen Peak in California, originally written by Henrik in 2013 This article began as a regular piece on Lassen Peak but quickly expanded as I discovered how complex the geology and history of the Lassen Volcanic Complex was. Unlike nearby Shasta, Lassen Peak is but a dacite lava dome, one…
It seemed like yesterday, the day I first discovered volcanic winter while conducting research on the infamous 1993 “storm of the century,” and some passing weather enthusiast had brought up Pinatubo and volcanic winter, and from that moment, I would delve into volcanology headfirst. The first Vixen volcano that caught my eye was the Illustrious…
This is a repost from the archives, an older post by Henrik which has been updated to reflect more recent findings. Did you know there are 255 volcanoes or volcanic features listed in the US? Volcanic activity in North America is surprisingly infrequent. In spite of there being no less than 255 volcanoes or volcanic…
The highest volcano in the world is Cerro Ojos del Salado. It is a stratovolcano in South America’s Central Volcanic Zone, reaching an impressive 6893 meters above sea level (or at least above what sea level used to be). It doesn’t look much: the volcano is a mess of overlapping domes with two separate summits,…
The centre of South Africa is an amazing place. The long drive from Cape Town in-land is exciting for the first two hours, while the road climbs up through the mountains, past vineyards and valleys full of fynbos. Once on the high interior plateau of South Africa, the landscape becomes dry and monotonous – and…
People mellow with age. (At least, most of us do.) The emotions of youth become less all-important and less demanding of our attention. Young people feel that every perceived slight needs addressing. The heat goes to the head and mistakes are made. Older people consider more before responding. The Earth, too, went through a youthful…
Rainbow’s end It is an amazing and powerful image. The wide lava fountain in the caldera like a wall flower in full bloom, with the cloud of volcano seeds above, the lava flowing from the bleeding flower, slowly re-filling one of the largest holes on Earth, and the distant rainbow linking the lava, the caldera,…
