It is sometimes said to be the highest volcano in Europe. There is an obvious problem with that: El Teide is not in Europe. It may be Spanish, but the location is in the Canary Island which ...

Albert’s article Volcanoes and rain explores the possible links between volcanic eruptions and subsequent periods of wet weather. But there is another side to this story: rain can, in turn, have ...

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 ...

Many volcanoes have captured the attention of fanatics such as us, we often pick favorites depending on our internal biases. After all volcanoes provide varieties of intrigue to curious minds, from ...

Today is 270 years since the destruction of Lisbon. The earthquake of All Saints day 1755 in Lisbon changed a nation and is still remembered across the continent. Hence a republication of our 2016 ...

It came as a shock – quite literally. It shouldn’t have, because a recent paper had predicted that the area was preparing for a large earthquake. On 29 July, at 23:25 UTC, the 5 th largest earthquake ...

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 ...

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 ...

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, ...

Here is the famous Steppe, the dry grass-land, the never-ending plain stretching across Eurasia from China to Hungary. Rainfall is too limited for trees to grow. The climate is harsh, with hot summers ...

Indeed, hail is not as dramatic or deadly as hurricanes, or tornadoes, or floods, which are far, far better documented in contemporary literature. But they are a very relevant meteorological ...

After writing my Ionian articles (there will be more Io later, since after all it has the solar system’s most magnificent active volcanoes) I felt it is time to return to Earth again, to a much ...