The Earth is full of riches. Once people discovered the importance of metals, they quickly found out where to get them from. The first mined metal may have been copper. When mixed with tin, this ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

Seeing a hill rise up in front of your eyes where there was a lake just weeks before, and seeing it happen close to a major city, that would be something. Perhaps the Neapolitans could have stayed ...

Heimaey is famous. It is the only place in Iceland known to have first been settled by non-Vikings: the first inhabitants were escaped Irish slaves, before 900 AD, who didn’t last long. Much later it ...

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 ...

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 ...

Living near the sea can be good. First and foremost, the sea provides a food supply in the form of fish and shellfish which is available throughout the year. The open water provides fast transport ...

Europe has few volcanoes. It lacks the volcanic magnificence of Indonesia, the grandeur of the Andes, the destructiveness of a St Helens or the beauty of a Fuji. But it can hold its own. This small ...

Florida is known for many things. It is home to VC’s stalwart, Geolurking. It has beach life, of the teenage variety. It has Disneyland, of the toddler-of-any-age variety. It has launched space ...

The summit of Mount Everest, the highest point on Earth, is a sea floor. That may come as a surprise; after all, a sea should be at sea level. In practice, there is some flexibility on this. Three ...