Who doesn’t love a good mystery? The allure of the unknown captivates all, no matter one’s social, political, religious, or scientific standing. From dark matter to what could lie beyond death to ...

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to forecast major eruptions? So far, the opportunity has been lacking. VEI-7 eruptions are rare: we have not seen one since Tambora in April 1815. To make a right ...

Life in paradise can be hard. Paradise is a Greek word of Persian origin made famous by the Jewish bible: it comes from a mix of very different cultures. The word means a walled garden. The garden ...

Let’s image the simplest, most boring volcano possible. It consists of a magma balloon fed by a straw. The ground is perfectly flat above the balloon. Magma comes up the straw at a constant rate. It ...

Along the western edge of South America, the Andes Mountains encompass one of the largest concentrations of volcanoes on Earth. Many of these volcanoes are active, and in the historical record of just ...

A fun question: which are the southernmost, most equatorial and northernmost volcanoes in the world? We need to add two provisos here, otherwise this question is impossible to answer: the volcano ...

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.

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 ...

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 ...

Volcanic activity in North America is surprisingly infrequent. In spite of there being no less than 255 volcanoes or volcanic features such as maars or volcanic fields listed for California (20), ...

A top-secret development on Mount Rainier came out in the open this morning. There was widespread surprise and excitement when people in Tacoma and Seattle saw a rocket launched from the summit of the ...