"A jaw-dropping feat of architecture has risen in the Italian city of Nola, just a stone’s throw away from the cataclysmic Mt. Vesuvius. Designed by Renzo Piano, Vulcano Buono is an epic cone-shaped commercial center crowned with a gorgeous sloping green roof. Piano’s 'good volcano' contributes a vital new space to the southern edge of the Nola commercial district, which is the most most important freight terminal complex in southern and central Italy."
posted by mr_crash_davis mark II: Jazz Odyssey on Sep 24, 2009 - 20 comments

As many as 40 new species may have been discovered near the crater of a volcano in New Guinea. Not to alarm anyone but Fearless Giant Rats, Caterpillars that look like Snakes and Fanged Frogs have been spotted and are said to be at large. [more inside]
posted by Hardcore Poser on Sep 6, 2009 - 49 comments

Lying 2,816 kilometres from the nearest continent; with approx 246 inhabitants; and having no TV until 2001; Tristan da Cunha is the most remote archipelago on the planet. There is an official web page. In 1961 the Island was evacuated because of volcanic activity but re inhabited in 1963. Early History; 20th Century History. Here are some pictures from the 1930's; from the 1960's and 70's and more present day. The Island people have developed their own vocabulary.
( wiki and Related).
posted by adamvasco on Sep 2, 2009 - 39 comments

Framed by a circle of clouds, this is a stunning illustration of Nature's powerful force. A plume of smoke, ash and steam soars five miles into the sky from an erupting volcano. The extraordinary image was captured by the crew of the International Space Station 220 miles above a remote Russian island in the North Pacific.
posted by KevinSkomsvold on Jun 26, 2009 - 22 comments

A supervolcano may be brewing beneath Mount St Helens
posted by Artw on Jun 10, 2009 - 86 comments

After months of pre-eruptive activity, Alaska's Mount Redoubt has erupted 6 times since Sunday night. Telegraphing its eruption with massive shallow earthquake activity in the range of 26 earthquakes every 10 minutes, the volcano, located around 100 miles southwest of Anchorage, spewed an ash column 10km high, and is expected to continue erupting for weeks or months. The last time this massive volcano erupted in 1989 a commercial airliner was caught in the ash column, causing the engines to seize and the plane to lose two miles of altitude before the engines were restarted. That eruption, which lasted for 5 months, produced this spectacular photo. Follow this amazing event at the Alaska Volcano Observatory. [more inside]
posted by baphomet on Mar 24, 2009 - 35 comments

Cool video of an undersea volcano erupting off Tonga. Spectacular clouds began spewing out of the sea on Monday about 10km from the southwest coast off the main island of Tongatapu, where up to 36 undersea volcanoes are clustered. More on these volcanism blogs.
posted by CunningLinguist on Mar 19, 2009 - 39 comments

In 1985, less than a week after the Palace of Justice siege in Bogota left 11 members of the Supreme Court dead, the ice-clad Nevada del Ruiz volcano erupted, wiping out the Colombian town of Armero in a huge wave of mud and water. Most links contain disturbing and NSFW images. [more inside]
posted by jontyjago on Mar 12, 2009 - 8 comments

On June 8, 1783, the volcano Laki in south Iceland tore open a 16-mile fissure that erupted over nine cubic miles of lava. Not only would this eruption kill over 50% of Iceland's livestock population, leading to famine which killed approximately 25% of the population; its effects were felt the world over, with flourine, sulfur dioxide, ash, sand and drastically cooled tempertaures from the blotted-out sun reaching as far afield as North America and Africa. The eruption lasted for nearly eight months. And from the day the eruption began, a humble priest named Jón Steingrímsson would make his mark in history. [more inside]
posted by Marisa Stole the Precious Thing on Mar 11, 2009 - 25 comments

While the world may be abuzz with talk of President Obama's first (sorta kinda but not really) State of the Union Address last night, others are comparing Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal -- who, in his response (part 1, part 2) scoffed at high-speed rail and suggested that monitoring volcanoes is somehow a bad thing -- to, um... well, just check it out for yourself. [more inside]
posted by hifiparasol on Feb 25, 2009 - 274 comments

An erupting stratovolcano poses numerous hazards for nearby habitation, but none nearly so terrifying and deadly as the pyroclastic flow. Pyroclastic flows, comprised of tons of superheated sulfuric gases, particulate rock materials and ash, can reach temperatures of 1,830 °F and travel at alarming speeds up to 450mph. Convection of materials within the clouds causes them to become a suspension, fluidizing and thundering noxiously across the surrounding landscape for miles, in some cases even uphill or across open water. Wherever these clouds come in contact with humans the result is catastrophe, as the residents of Herculaneum and St. Pierre, Martinique learned within minutes of the eruptions of Vesuvius in 79AD and Pelee in 1902-- both towns were overwhelmed by pyroclastic clouds, igniting all flammable materials and incinerating and suffocating the inhabitants. None survived Herculaneum, while just two of St. Pierre's 26,000 survived, one of whom was a prisoner condemned to death and awaiting his execution in a dungeon cell. Despite their incredible capacity for violence, pyroclastic flows are also capable of producing mesmerizing, awe-inspiring beauty.
posted by baphomet on Feb 18, 2009 - 18 comments

Covered in lava, Goma in the DRC, was destroyed by the Nyiragongo Volcano a few years back. Since then, the aid hub has seen a lot of turmoil. As Rebel General Laurent Nkunda of the CNDP nears Goma, 250,000 have fled the area and disease is rife.
posted by gman on Nov 9, 2008 - 7 comments

Stop me if you've heard this one. An Icelandic sea captain, an Alaskan reporter, and a bunch of Russian amateur radio enthusiasts try to get to a remote island in the Aleutians to set up a ham-radio outpost as part of a DXpedition (wiki). From the preliminary report, it sounds uninteresting. They landed on the island, and the resident volcano, Mount Cleveland (wiki), erupted. Solution? Bring on the vodka and big bags of croutons. (WMV or RealAudio)
posted by greatgefilte on Aug 9, 2008 - 11 comments

Surtsey was first observed on November 14, 1963, as a pillar of smoke on the water some ways south of Iceland. The very next day lava and tephra broke the surface of the Atlantic and by May, 1964 the formation had grown to 2.4 km². Over the next three years lava eruptions continued, coating the loose debris in a hard shell and protecting it from erosion. An island born. Naturally, Surtsey has been under close scientific observation since its emergence, and courtesy The Surtsey Research Society you can read published reports on the geology and biological colonization of this new earth.
posted by carsonb on Jul 17, 2008 - 9 comments

"It was relatively quiet along the shores of the Big Island in Hawaii for quite some time. But since early March of this year, lava from the Kilauea Volcano flows down again to the coastal plains - which produces new land for the island - and makes the Big Island even bigger. Now when the red lava meets the Pacific Ocean, giant steam plumes rise high in the sky - this makes it so magnificent and absolutely unique to Hawaii. I photographed the phenomenon from land, water and air. A white plume currently issues from the vent - and I was lucky enough to get some shots." -Josef Hoflehner [more inside]
posted by notsnot on May 8, 2008 - 16 comments

Six days ago, the Chaitén volcano in Chile began a surprise eruption. So far, more than 8000 people have been evacuated, and NASA has tracked the results from space. Even more stunning however, are the images that occurred when a thunderstorm collided with the volcanic plume.
posted by CheeseDigestsAll on May 8, 2008 - 58 comments

British diplomat William Hamilton (whose 2nd wife Emma is perhaps best known for having a scandalous public affair with Horatio Nelson) loved volcanoes. His 1776 book Campi Flegrei: Observations on the volcanoes of the two Sicilies* used stunning hand-coloured illustrations by Peter Fabris to demonstrate to the scientific world that volcanic processes can be beautifully creative as well as horribly destructive. [via this post at the nonist, which, in case you hadn't noticed, has been really great lately] [more inside]
posted by mediareport on Nov 4, 2007 - 14 comments

It takes something truly exceptional to be both impressive and completely useless, simultaneously : Let's face it, smoke rings are cool and sometimes mysterious. (Maybe just not 5 min. and 31 seconds worth of cool and mystererious). Amaze the kids and without lighting up! (zerotoys.com YouTube video) Naturally occuring vortex rings are even cooler. The inventor in the first link, (Aussie Peter Terren of the previously mentioned tesladownunder.com) shows more on vortex ring launchers) and has also recently discovered both YouTube and MeFi. Keep up with his latest geekiness on his What's New page.
posted by spock on Jun 22, 2007 - 14 comments

Tvashtar in Motion. Awesome five-frame GIF of fountaining sulfuric lava on Io courtesy New Horizons as it swung by Jupiter earlier this year. Found via Planetary Society Blog (Thank you, Emily). More on Tvashtar.
posted by brownpau on May 15, 2007 - 19 comments

The volcano Piton de la Fournaise on the island of Réunion has erupted. Réunion, 800km from Madagascar in the Indian Ocean, is technically part of the EU as an overseas département of France. The latest eruption (BBC video, requires Realplayer) of Piton de la Fournaise has resulted in some beautiful photos Top right - Voir le diaporama.
posted by djgh on Apr 7, 2007 - 12 comments

While the Queen was in New Zealand on Christmas Eve 1953 a lahar destroyed a rail bridge in Tangiwai. When the Wellington to Auckland Express tried to cross the bridge, the resulting accident killed 151 people. On behalf of her mother, Prince Andrew is currently in New Zealand, commemorating a hero, and another lahar has errupted, from the same volcano. The death toll is zero.
posted by Samuel Farrow on Mar 18, 2007 - 13 comments

Space volcano. The New Horizons space probe, en route to Pluto and the Kuiper Belt, captures an amazing image of the Tvashtar volcano on Jupiter's moon Io.
posted by Chinese Jet Pilot on Mar 2, 2007 - 9 comments

A yacht crew witnessed the birth of a new island and other strange consequences of volcanic activity in Tonga, and here are pictures they took.
posted by thirteenkiller on Nov 9, 2006 - 45 comments

Not your ordinary mud volcano. This erruption might be manmade and it is quickly engulfing a large swath of Eastern Java. The putrid gas and mud have been flowing since May, and recent attempts to control the flow have led to demonstrations serious enough for the govenrment to issue "shoot-on-sight" orders. The flow could last for another hundred years.
posted by imposster on Sep 27, 2006 - 17 comments

"We were forced to evacuate the remotely operated vehicle, 'Jason II,' several times to avoid getting it enveloped in volcanic clouds," said Bill Chadwick, ...one of the authors of the study. "But at other times, we could observe the eruption from only 10 feet away - something you could never do on land. So in some ways, we were able to see processes more clearly at the bottom of the ocean than we ever could on land. That was surprising." From KGW (bugmenot). Podcasts, videos, images, sounds, daily logs, and lots of information can be found on the project's website.
posted by pwb503 on May 25, 2006 - 5 comments

A huge, steaming hot slab of rock has been growing out of Mount St Helens by over one meter a day since last November. Here's a time-lapse movie of the slab growing.
posted by gottabefunky on May 9, 2006 - 54 comments

The Lost Kingdom of Tambora, Pompeii of the East, was recently uncovered by an oceanographic team from the University of Rhode Island and Indonesian researchers. The kingdom was buried when Mount Tambora violently erupted in 1815, and set the conditions for 1816, the Year Without Summer. It was not the first, or last time, that a volcano eruption affected the world.
posted by Atreides on Feb 28, 2006 - 15 comments

Home heating prices getting you down? Turn off your oven and cook with lava instead. Sure, try this at home, what the hell.
posted by Saucy Intruder on Jan 12, 2006 - 12 comments

The South West Volcano Reasearch Centre: While it may not have the most attractive site design, SWVRC is full of interesting information, including a status report on restless volcanos around the world, current eruptions and research on volcanos around the world. Their updates page contains their most recent news and information. Enjoy!
posted by dazed_one on Apr 19, 2005 - 2 comments

This is a very odd way to find out about a volcanic eruption. Shame it is sunset, and the webcam isn't showing much.
posted by eriko on Mar 8, 2005 - 9 comments

Mount St. Helens Erupting.
Anybody have any money riding on this?
posted by Parannoyed on Oct 1, 2004 - 11 comments

Can we predict volcanic eruptions? PBS aired a NOVA program called "Deadly Shadow of Vesuvius" in 1998 which suggests that we can by monitoring small scale earthquakes which "swarm" as an eruption approaches. Why is this important now? Look at this map, which indicates the occurence of over 40 earthquakes under Mount St. Helens just today, with 10 being over 3.0 on the Richter scale. The Pacific Northwest Seismograph Network has issued a series of alerts with more detail. National Geographic is reporting that an eruption is imminent.
posted by monju_bosatsu on Sep 30, 2004 - 19 comments

The results of the second annual Science and Engineering Visualization Challenge are out and include some dazzling imagery of a feeding tick, a volcano, and movies of a bat in action, an overview of the 2002 European floods, and a presentation on RNA interference.
posted by euphorb on Sep 24, 2004 - 2 comments

The USA is sending the refugees from Monserrat back home. Why? Because the threat from their volcano is no longer regarded as "temporary", but "permanent".
posted by Pretty_Generic on Aug 20, 2004 - 24 comments

Boom! Forget terror attacks, the real reason for an orange alert in NYC has to do with ... rocks. I'll bet you've never heard of Cumbre Vieja. In fact, if the first hit on a google search for something is a PDF, you know it's obscure. (It's a volcano in the Canaries). If it erupts, it'll spell the end for Washington, New York and Boston (and parts of Europe will get a bit wet.) Hoo!

Now, short of hoping it will go away, there's nothing you can do, because it will take 35 million years to dismantle the dangerous bits of rock. Instead, the boffins are talking about evacuating the east coast. Yet more obscure places you wish you could forget menacing the future of the US, hey?
posted by bonaldi on Aug 9, 2004 - 33 comments

Mt. Erebus from space. NASA's Autonomous Sciencecraft Experiment software, which controls the Earth Observing-1 spacecraft, took some amazing images of the lava lake of Antarctica's Mount Erebus volcano without any human interaction. [Via Fark.]
posted by homunculus on Jun 27, 2004 - 14 comments

When will Rainier erupt? Last night, I dreamt that Mt. Rainier erupted. Now, I don't believe in prescient dreams, but if this were to happen, and it has, we in Seattle might not need to leave Seattle, but those closer to the mountain are probably going to want to get out of the way quickly. I wonder if an earthquake could trigger an eruption, sort of a double-whammy natural disaster that would instantly transform Seattle into the least desirable place to live in the country?
posted by tomharpel on Apr 5, 2003 - 26 comments

An estimated 300,000 people have fled across the Congolese/Rwandan border to escape lava flow from the recently erupted Mt Nyiragongo volcano. Many are thought to have died, but this mass movement has prompted fears that a much larger humanitarian disaster may be imminent.
More photographs here, map of the region here.
posted by davehat on Jan 18, 2002 - 4 comments

Earth springs a leak.
Mount Etna's cloud of ash from space. This pic really adds a perspective of size and power.
posted by monkeyJuice on Jul 27, 2001 - 15 comments

Good God!
posted by Mocata on Oct 4, 2000 - 18 comments