It is a truth universally acknowledged that any Icelandic volcano in possession of magma must be in want of an eruption. However little known the feelings and innards of such a volcano may be, any ...

The double-booked land is also known as the Afar Triangle, a low-lying region wedged into the Ethiopian Plateau. The region is not for the intrepid. The name is synonymous with remoteness. It is also ...

Some events can cast long shadows. The UK is still talking about the storm of 1987 (‘the worst night since the Blitz’), the winter of 1963, the storm floods of 1953, the London smog of 1952, the Great ...

It is a narrow but passable road, or at least it used to be. It begins at the Saddle Road which crosses Hawai’i between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Both mountains have observatories at or near the summit ...

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 ...

Mid-oceanic rifts should be in the middle of the ocean they formed. And often they are, but there are exceptions. The Reykjanes Rift, south of Iceland, is one of these. It is well known for its ...

The volcano Cumbre Vieja in the island of La Palma has been showing signs of unrest. The question on everyone’s mind is, will there be an eruption? Maybe, or maybe not. This is always hard to know.

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 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 ...

It seemed to come out of nowhere. In the midst of a quiet interlude, after the hugely damaging La Palma had ended, when the hugely touristic eruption at Fagradalsfjall failed to re-appear, and the ...

Some fault systems in the world are well known for their destructive potential. Examples are Turkey’s North Anatolian fault and California’s San Andreas. In both cases, large events in the ...

Imagine. You are being put in charge of planning for a future major volcanic eruption. All you have is an incomplete list of volcanoes in the world, some experience of past eruptions, and a few ...