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From the eruption in the background and the weapon of choice, you can see that being a park ranger at Virunga National Park in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) is not like the job your local park ranger holds. These rangers must protect themselves and the park’s mountain gorillas from both poachers and warring factions. And now the huge eruption of Nyamulagira volcano has opened up opportunities for the park. They’ve set up a camp from which tourists can get a good view of the volcano’s activities! Read more about it and see a gallery of pictures at National Geographic News. Link -Thanks, Marilyn Terrell!
(Image credit: Cai Tjeenk Willink, Virunga National Park)
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Seven churches devoured by lava? Maybe someone is trying to tell them something! No, actually many more homes and businesses are devoured by lava, but churches are built to last forever, so often we still have the ruins after a volcanic eruption, whereas other buildings are totally destroyed. Shown is the church in San Juan Parangaricutiro, Mexico, that was half-buried by a volcanic eruption in 1943. See lots more at Environmental Graffiti. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user · YeahjaleaH ·)
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Would you live in a city near an active volcano? Many people do, all over the world. Environmental Graffiti shows us ten cities in which the people live side-by-side with the threat of explosions, ash, and lava. Shown is the city of Pasto, Colombia, (population 450,000) which is only 9 kilometers from the active volcano Galeras. Link
(Image credit: Camilo Martínez S.)
I’d expect to see the image above if I were watching, say, Transformers 4, and I would remark on its unrealistic quality. Red skies with burning lightning and a massive volcanic plume? Please. But the scene near Puyehue volcano in southern Chile played out exactly like this Monday afternoon; 3500 residents were evacuated following earthquakes and falling ash earlier in the week.
Link | Image credit: AP Photo/Francisco Negroni, AgenciaUno
Pocket Volcano - $3.95
Is that a volcano in your pocket or are you just happy to see me. Oh, it is just a volcano in your pocket. How embarrassing.
Wow, that Pocket Volcano from the NeatoShop gives off some eruption. Did you say it can be used over and over again? That’s fantastic.
Be sure to check out the NeatoShop for more fabulous Science Toys.
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The Galileo spacecraft captured this fantastic color composite image of a volcanic eruption on Jupiter’s moon Io. APOD explains:
At the image top, over Io’s limb, a bluish plume rises about 140 kilometers above the surface of a volcanic caldera known as Pillan Patera. In the image middle, near the night/day shadow line, the ring shaped Prometheus plume is seen rising about 75 kilometers above Io while casting a shadow below the volcanic vent. Named for the Greek god who gave mortals fire, the Prometheus plume is visible in every image ever made of the region dating back to the Voyager flybys of 1979 – presenting the possibility that this plume has been continuously active for at least 18 years. The above digitally sharpened image of Io was originally recorded in 1997 from a distance of about 600,000 kilometers. Recent analyses of Galileo data has uncovered evidence of a magma ocean beneath Io’s surface.
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The Caribbean island of Montserrat once had its government and most of the island’s services centered in the small town of Plymouth. The community was evacuated in 1995 due to volcanic activity. In 1997, an eruption buried Plymouth under several feet of ash, rock, and lava. It has been an exclusion zone ever since, and no residents have returned. See a collection of 40 pictures of what’s left. Link
(Image credit: Flickr user Nick Brooks)
This Thursday, April 7th, National Geographic presents Man vs. Volcano, as part of their Expedition Week series of specials. Scientists, along with a journalist and photographer from National Geographic, climbed Mt. Nyiragongo, an active volcano in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Prepare yourself for the experience with a sneak preview featuring lots of pictures at the Neatorama Spotlight Blog. Link
(Image credit: Carsten Peter/National Geographic)
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The largest volcanic event in recorded history was the Mount Tambora eruption in 1815, which spewed so much rock and ash that the following year was known as “the Year Without a Summer.” But that was small compared the the Toba Event, in which a volcano in Northern Sumatra erupted 73,000 years ago and spewed out 28 times as much debris -and may have wiped out most of the human population of the earth.
As the volcano erupted it deposited 6 meters of ash on parts of Malaysia and a 15 centimetres thick ash layer over the entire Indian subcontinent, and acid rain fell for years. The temperature of the planet fell abruptly 3–5°C and according to some (based on ice cores for Greenland) it jump -started the next global ice age.
It just so happens that this massive environmental catastrophe coincides with evidence for a massive human population decline resulting in a genetic bottleneck. According to the Toba catastrophe theory the resulting 6 to 10 year volcanic winter destroyed most of the vegetation in the area where humans would have been living and may have reduced the population to as few a 1000 breeding pairs.
There is some good evidence for this genetic bottleneck, and many geneticists feel that evidence suggests that all living humans, despite apparent variety, descend from a very small population, perhaps between 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs dating to about 70,000 years ago. It is also known that Eastern African chimpanzee, Bornean orangutan, central Indian macaque, and tigers, all recovered from population bottelnecks dating to around the same time. All of which would seem to fit neatly with the Toba super volcano event and the Toba catastrophe theory.
But as it always is in science nothing is neat or easy, and contradictory evidence is just as strong.
Today, what’s left of the volcano is a huge, beautiful, water-filled crater called Lake Toba. But it’s still a volcano, and may yet erupt again. Read more about it at Atlas Obscura. Link
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Photo: Olivier Grunewald
It looks like French photographer Olivier Grunewald has gone to Orodruin, the fabled volcano of Mordor – but the otherworldly lake of molten lava is actually very much on Earth. Boston’s The Big Picture has 28 fascinating photos of Grunewald’s journey to Hell on Earth, AKA the Nyiragongo Crater in Africa:
In June 2010, a team of scientists and intrepid explorers stepped onto the shore of the lava lake boiling in the depths of Nyiragongo Crater, in the heart of the Great Lakes region of Africa. The team had dreamed of this: walking on the shores of the world’s largest lava lake. Members of the team had been dazzled since childhood by the images of the 1960 documentary "The Devil’s Blast" by Haroun Tazieff, who was the first to reveal to the public the glowing red breakers crashing at the bottom of Nyiragongo crater. Photographer Olivier Grunewald was within a meter of the lake itself, giving us a unique glimpse of it’s molten matter.
Link | Olivier Grunewald at Gitzo | Wild Wonders of Europe – via Ectoplasmosis
Photo: Bradley Ambrose
Tired of your boring ol’ vacation? Try extreme vacations, which will definitely make you feel alive, if they don’t kill you first. National Geographic has a gallery of 20 of the most extreme, hair-raising adventures on the planet.
For example:
Descend Into an Active Volcano
Vanuatu, South PacificAs a general rule, lava is best seen from a great distance. That is, of course, unless you’re a group of daredevils who, led by Kiwi adventurer Geoff Mackley, descended 640 feet (195 meters) into Vanuatu’s Marum Volcano to witness the explosive bowels of the Earth firsthand in 2010. The resulting video, in which a man in a heatproof suit came within 300 feet (91 meters) of a viciously boiling lake of lava, went viral. It’s pretty clear that live volcanoes are unpredictable and their craters offer all sorts of inhospitable challenges: toxic gas, extreme heat, tumbling rocks, and unwarranted explosions. Just because it’s insane doesn’t mean that it’s impossible.
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A new theory says that volcanic activity in Europe’s past may have contributed to the extinction of Neanderthals. Several volcanos erupted in a short period of time along the Caucasus Mountains about 40,000 years ago. Populations of Neanderthals, who lived mainly in Europe, may have been reduced to the point they couldn’t compete with modern humans who lived in several continents. University of Texas, Arlington anthropologist Naomi Cleghorn, a member of the research team, explained what they found.
The researchers examined sediments layer from around 40,000 years ago in Russia’s Mezmaiskaya Cave and found that the more volcanic ash a layer had, the less plant pollen it contained.
“We tested all the layers for this volcanic ash signature. The most volcanic-ash-rich layer”—likely corresponding to the so-called Campanian Ignimbrite eruption, which occurred near Naples (map)—”had no [tree] pollen and very little pollen from other types of plants,” Cleghorn said. “It’s just a sterile layer.”
The loss of plants would have led to a decline in plant-eating mammals, which in turn would have affected the Neanderthals, who hunted large mammals for food.
Modern humans would have also been affected, but they had “backup populations” in Africa and Asia. Link
(Image credit: Kenneth Garrett, National Geographic)
The following is an article from Uncle John’s Supremely Satisfying Bathroom Reader.
Everyone fantasizes about accidentally uncovering a treasure. Pompeii and Herculaneum were such treasures. They existed for a thousand years until, in one brief moment, they disappeared. Here’s the story of how they were lost… and found.
(Image credit: Flickr users Simon & Vicki)
VESUVIUS BLOWS
Two thousand years ago, the prosperous cities of Pompeii and Herculaneum thrived near Rome, 10 miles from the foot of the volcano Mount Vesuvius. Vesuvius hadn’t exploded for over 1,000 years; no one even knew it was a volcano. Then on August 24 in the year 79 A.D., it erupted, completely burying both cities under mountains of ash-Pompeii and Herculaneum were lost.
Mount Vesuvius continued to erupt sporadically over the centuries that followed, each time adding to the volcanic debris that covered the former town sites; each layer leaving the two cities more hidden than before. Four hundred years later, the Roman Empire collapsed, and legends about the two cities went with it. For 15 centuries, they lay forgotten and undisturbed, their stories untold. Then clues about their existence began to turn up. For example, around 1594, a Roman architect named Domenico Fontana was digging a canal to supply water to a rich man’s home when workmen uncovered pieces of ruined buildings and a few ancient coins. But nothing much came of the discovery.
RUMORS OF TREASURE
(Image credit: Flickr user Bill McIntyre)
In 1707 part of Italy came under Austrian rule, and Prince d’Elboeuf came to command the cavalry. He heard rumors of treasures being brought up from underground, so he promptly purchased a large parcel of land in the immediate vicinity. Over the next 30 year, he had shafts and tunnels dug and uncovered vases, statues, and even a number of polished marble slabs-once the floor of the theater in Herculaneum-all of which he used to decorate his villa.
Word of the prince’s finds spread, and other treasure hunters came looking. When the first skeleton-complete with bronze and silver coins-was unearthed in 1748, treasure fever hit hard. For the next several years, artifacts were continually looted from the area. But it wasn’t until 1763, when workers unearthed an inscription reading “res publica Pompeianorum“-meaning “the commonwealth of Pompeians”-that the ancient city was identified.
Galaxy M87 is an enormous collection of heavenly bodies, but astronomers who have studied the effects of its black hole see similarities to the recent volcanic eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland, and have dubbed it a galactic super-volcano. We covered the shockwaves associated with the Earth mountain previously, and parallels can actually be seen in the distant galaxy.
In the analogy with Eyjafjallajökull, the energetic particles produced in the vicinity of the black hole rise through the X-ray emitting atmosphere of the cluster, lifting up the coolest gas near the center of M87 in their wake, much like the hot volcanic gases drag up the clouds of dark ash. And just like the volcano here on Earth, shockwaves can be seen when the black hole pumps energetic particles into the cluster gas.
“This analogy shows that even though astronomical phenomena can occur in exotic settings and over vast scales, the physics can be very similar to events on Earth,” said co-author Aurora Simionescu also of the Kavli Institute.
Chandra X-Ray Observatory has much more info on this and other astronomical wonders.
Link – and here’s just the X-Ray version of the phenomenon.
(Image credit: NASA/CXC/KIPAC/N. Werner, E. Million et al); Radio (NRAO/AUI/NSF/F. Owen)
Comments Off The Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, displayed some dramatic events during its Plinian eruption recently. Throughout this video, rapidly moving shockwaves can be seen reflecting off the cloud and crater as lava is blasted out of the fissure.
This video shows how air traffic slowed to a halt over Europe as the volcanic ash wafted over from Iceland a couple of weeks ago.
And this video shows how traffic returned to normal after the clouds dissipated to a safe degree. -via Jason Kottke
Sean Murtagh of London, England was scheduled to marry Natalie Mead of Brisbane, Australia surrounded by family and friends in England. They had a civil ceremony in Australia already, and were on the way to the big British ceremony when they were stranded at an airport in Dubai due to the volcanic ash cloud that cancelled many European flights. Instead of canceling the wedding, they were married via Skype! Assembled wedding attendees in Ealing, west London, watched the couple take their vows aided by a laptop and a webcam at the airport.
Natalie Mead told Gulf News: “Passengers stranded in the hotel were getting excited for the first time in days when they heard about our wedding; some even helped me with my hair and make-up. It was also great to see everyone in the UK on our wedding day, even if it was via webcam.
“It has been an amazing day and we are just so grateful for everything that everyone has done for us. It is definitely a story to tell the grandchildren. There was no way we were going to let this volcano stop us [from] getting married.”
Caroline Black, a celebrant who conducted the online ceremony from London, said: “It was just like any other wedding except the bride and groom weren’t there.”
The airport donated flowers and a wedding cake for the celebration. Link -via Bits and Pieces
Next month will mark the 30th anniversary of the Mount St. Helens eruption that buried the area in ash, flattened trees for miles around, and killed 57 people. A quarter of the 110,000-acre Mount St. Helens National Volcanic Monument was set aside as a research area in 1982, so scientists could see how nature alone would reclaim the blast site. National Geographic magazine takes a look at how the area is flourishing now.
A key lesson is the importance of “biological legacies”—fallen trees, buried roots, seeds, gophers, amphibians—that survived the blast, thanks to snow cover, topography, or luck. Ecologists had assumed rebirth would happen from the outside in, as species from border areas encroached on the blast zone. But recovery has also come from within. Starting with a single plant Crisafulli discovered in 1981 on the barren, 3,750-acre expanse known as the Pumice Plain, purple prairie lupines became the first color in a world of sterile gray. In life they were nutrient factories, food for insects, habitat for mice and voles; in death they, and the organisms they attracted, enriched the ash, allowing other species to colonize. Gradually the blast zone began to bloom.
(image credit: Diane Cook and Len Jenshel)
The Big Picture blog has some stunning images of the Eyjafjallajökull volcano in Iceland. The volcano erupted on April 3rd and spewed enough ash into the air to disrupt air travel to and from Europe. See photographs of the eruption in progress and its effects on the atmosphere as well as satellite images. Link -via reddit
(image credit: Ulrich Latzenhofer/CC BY-SA)
When Icelandic chef Fridgeir Eiriksson learned that the Fimmvorduhals volcano was erupting, he decided to use the opportunity to cook a luxurious meal using the volcano’s heat:
On Tuesday, Eiriksson and three mates at the cafi of Reykjavik’s luxury hotel Holt drove supplies and “lots of champagne” up to the foot of the mountain in two trucks.
The chefs set up a make-shift dining area near a lava field with a red carpet, a small table and two bolstered chairs for a customers who were to be flown up by helicopter.[...]
With mercury dipping to as low as minus 30 degrees at the mountain over the last few days and the glowing fresh lava around them the diners were offered: lobster soup, flaming lobster and monkfish and lava-cooked shallot onions and Veuve Clicquot champagne.
Link via The Daily Telegraph (larger images available) | Photo: Kristjan Jogason/Demotix Images
Thinking about seeing The Road, the new movie based on the novel by Cormac McCarthy? Take note of some of the locations they filmed in, as they utilized existing devastated areas to serve as the cataclysmic setting.
Windy Ridge, which is on the east flank of Mt. St. Helens in Southern Washington, still looks like a wasteland nearly 30 years after the volcano erupted in a lateral blast. The filmmakers took advantage of the naturally creepy vistas that sweep around the formerly lush environment.
“They wanted locations that represented devastation,” Ludvigsen said. “The areas they liked were where trees were uprooted and root wads were showing, trees where the tops were snapped off from the eruption.”
It also helped that portions of Forest Road 99 had been washed out during recent flooding.
The crew spent a good portion of the day in that location, filming stars Viggo Mortensen and Kodi Smit-McPhee. In this adaptation of Cormac McCarthy’s novel, Mortensen plays a father leading his young son through a landscape torn apart by some unnamed cataclysm that destroyed civilization and most life on Earth.
Link | Photo: Joel W. Roger/CORBIS
Photo by Carsten Peter
Perched above the lighted city of Catania, Italy, Mount Etna hurls a fountain of fire skyward as rivers of lava spill down its flanks. In spite of its dazzling displays, Mount Etna is a relatively safe volcano with rare, compact eruptions and slow-flowing lava that gives people a chance to escape. – National Geographic – {More Pics here!}
Lots of people live near a volcano. As for me, I live a relatively safe distance from Mt. St. Helens, but this region was severely affected by the eruption in 1980. I recently returned there, and it while it seems safe now, the devastation still shows. But The Geography Site cites four good reasons why society loves a lava-spewing mountain in their backyard.
Geothermal energy, minerals, fertile soil, and tourism. That last one is interesting, and many tourist attractions involve volcanic activity. And about that geothermal energy?
Countries such as Iceland make extensive use of geothermal power, with approximately two thirds of Iceland’s electricity coming from steam powered turbines. New Zealand and to a lesser extent, Japan, also make effective use of geothermal energy.
It makes sense that we’d be so close to that which can give us something powerful, while risking so much at the same time. Volcanoes rock.
It looks like a new volcano is growing in Nola, Italy, near Mt. Vesuvius! The Vulcano Buono (good volcano) is a commercial center designed by Renzo Piano. The interior space is bigger than it looks due to the sloping grass roof, which insulates the building. Inside you’ll find a forest and an amphitheater, plus shops, a hotel, a supermarket, and a movie theater. See more pictures at Inhabitat. Link -via Metafilter
The BBC’s natural history unit sent an expedition to Mount Bosavi, a volcano in Papua New Guinea. Scientists on the team identified 40 new species of wildlife which have called the crater home since its last eruption 200,000 years ago. These include the 3-pound Bosavi Woolly Rat which can grow up to 32 inches long! They also found colorful new birds, beetles, spiders, marsupials, and frogs, such as the Litoria sauroni pictured.
The habitat in the area is currently regarded as pristine, but less than 20 miles to the south of Mount Bosavi extensive logging operations are happening.
The mountain acts like an island in the vast sea of jungle, trapping different species on it.
(image credit: BBC)
The new photo was taken June 12 from the International Space Station. NASA says volcano researchers are excited about the picture “because it captures several phenomena that occur during the earliest stages of an explosive volcanic eruption.”
The main plume appears to be a combination of brown ash and white steam, according to a NASA statement. The vigorously rising plume gives the steam a bubble-like appearance
The surrounding atmosphere has been shoved up by the shock wave of the eruption, scientists said.
(image credit: NASA/ISS/Earth Observatory)
From the Upcoming 
ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
Sliding down a mountain on a snowboard is a completely different experience when the mountain is an active volcano! The new sport is drawing snowboarders and surfers to the foothills of Nicaragua’s Cerro Negro mountain.
Surfers, dressed in protective jump suits, knee-pads and helmets, can reach speeds of up to 80 km/h (50mph) on their specially-constructed plywood boards.
Phillip Southan, owner and manager of Bigfoot Hostel and Green Pathways Tours, said the unique trip is a world first.
‘We started offering this trip on 2005 and its has become so popular,’ the 26-year-old from Barbados said. ‘This is a unique tour as nowhere else in the world can you board down an active volcano.
‘This is the fourth year and to date we have taken over 10,000 people on this tour,’ said Mr Southan. ‘It is a 45 minute hike of easy to moderate difficulty.
Cerro Negro last erupted in 1999, and the crater is still smoking. Link -via Unique Daily
Yes, that’s right a volcanic plug. It sounds dangerous but at this stage in its life, Taung Kalat poses no threat. A volcanic plug (sometimes called a ‘neck’) is formed when magma, on its way up through a vent on an active volcano, hardens inside the vent. While the volcano is active this could well lead to the mother of all explosions and it would, you have to admit, be a shame if this beautiful monastery was to be catapulted in to the stratosphere. However, the volcano is thought (perhaps we should say hoped) to be extinct.
(image credit: Flickr user exfordy)
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.
When Mount Redoubt volcano in Alaska showed signs of erupting several months ago, researchers from New Mexico went there with the latest technology to measure the phenomenon.
The Lightning Mapping Array allows users to ‘see through’ the dust and ash, and observe the lightning generated within the eruption. The results were some stunning images and valuable data in the study of volcanoes.
(Photo: Bretwood Higman)
“First, we see an eruptive or explosive phase,” physics professor Paul Krehbiel said. “Electrical activity is continuous and strong. We see a lot of small electrical discharges as hot gasses come out of the volcano.”
The second phase involves the ash cloud as it drifts away from the volcano with the wind. This phase is punctuated by discrete lightning – or lightning bolts.“After the explosion is over, there is a subsequent phase of plume lightning,” Krehbiel said. “Full-fledged lightning occurs in the cloud of ash and water both above and downwind of the volcano.”
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
Lava explodes and flows in different forms. How many of these are you familiar with?
The explosive nature of these fascinating geological mountains provide us with a time line of earth’s past, they create chains of living and breathing islands, and they cause deathly destruction to everything they touch.
The violence of a volcanic eruption is based upon many factors including the viscosity of the given magma. (the more viscous, the more violent) Viscosity is a measure of a materials resistance to flow, and the thicker it is, the slower is will flow. This works the same way in our bodies when we are dehydrated.
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by lannaxe96.
Here is spectacular footage of an underwater volcano erupting near Tonga.
The eruption began Monday after a series of earthquakes near Tonga, a 170-island archipelago between Australia and Tahiti, residents told the Associated Press. There were magnitude-5.0 quakes there Sunday night and Monday afternoon, according to the U.S. Geological Survey.
Though the Wellington Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) issued an advisory for the area, the plume isn’t engendering island residents and so far hasn’t hurt fish or other animals, according to the AP.
Yesterday a plume rose to between 15,000 and 25,000 feet (4.6 to 7.6 kilometers), the Smithsonian’s Global Volcanism Program reported. "It’s a very significant eruption, on quite a large scale," Tonga’s chief geologist, Kelepi Maf, told the Times of London. This is not unusual for this area and we expect this to happen here at any time."
– via sciam
From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by Geekazoid.
