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 on Jul 17, 2008 - View this thread

"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
posted on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

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 on May 8, 2008 - View this thread

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]
posted on Nov 4, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Jun 22, 2007 - View this thread

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 on May 15, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Apr 7, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Mar 18, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Mar 2, 2007 - View this thread

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 on Nov 9, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Sep 27, 2006 - View this thread

"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 on May 25, 2006 - View this thread

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 on May 9, 2006 - View this thread

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 on Feb 28, 2006 - View this thread

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

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 on Apr 19, 2005 - View this thread

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 on Mar 8, 2005 - View this thread

Mount St. Helens Erupting.
Anybody have any money riding on this?
posted on Oct 1, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Sep 30, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Sep 24, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Aug 20, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Aug 9, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Jun 27, 2004 - View this thread

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 on Apr 5, 2003 - View this thread

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 on Jan 18, 2002 - View this thread

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

Good God!
posted on Oct 4, 2000 - View this thread