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 ...

Like other natural disasters, volcanic eruptions can have an impact on civilizations. Of course they can annihilate them, but they can also contribute to their economic development by providing a ...

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 ...

In my last article I wrote about the Turkana, volcanism that is part of the Great African Rift. But unbeknownst to most this is just one of several rift systems in Africa that are tearing the ...

At one time, Portugal ruled the world. Its explorers discovered the Cape of Good Hope, created colonies around the Indian Ocean, reached China and Japan, founded the city of Nagasaki, and claimed much ...

To me, it’s an eruption because it’s throwing rocks and it’s on a volcano. It could be phreatic or magmatic. It’s phreatic if it’s driven by heated groundwater, or magmatic gasses from an intrusion, ...

It rains a lot in British Columbia. Here is where the Pacific Ocean dumps its excess moisture. The mountains are covered with trees; the lichen-covered branches drip in the seemingly perpetual rain or ...

The last time I wrote an article for Volcanocafe it was a guest post about the Galapagos Islands, but now I’m a new member of the Volcanocafe writing team (a little bit more about me later). Deep in ...

This is the third article in our series of re-posts. It is well worth noticing that it was first published well ahead of the volcanic crisis at Volcan Chilles on the border between Equador and ...

One of my fondest memories of South Africa (apart from being shot at by police) is the bird of paradise. Not a bird: the birds of this name live in a different continent and a very different habitat.

After our ‘quantum Katla’ post, it is now time to return to the real Katla. For in the real world, Katla has been showing unusually strong shaking. It turned out that Henrik had already done much of ...

Lava flows come in all sizes. The Reykjanes eruption produced flows of several kilometers length. Other volcanoes can do ten times that length, although we do not have a lot of recent experience with ...