Pythagasaurus is the fabled Tyrannosaurus practiced in the skills of trigonometry and long division. Apparently he knows all eight numbers.
[Via]
posted by homunculus
on Nov 11, 2011 -
9 comments
After nearly 200 years of rest, Mount Tambora is rumbling again and spewing ash. The last eruption of Mount Tambora was in 1815 and at the time was the largest eruption in the world since 180 AD. The massive amount of volcanic ash kicked into the stratosphere (around 160 cubic kilometers of ejecta were released) cooled Earth's temperature by over a degree Fahrenheit and caused "
The year without a summer". In comparison, the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens released around 1 cubic kilometer of ejecta.
posted by chakalakasp
on Sep 19, 2011 -
48 comments
Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of Congo is one of the world's largest active volcanoes. The Boston Globe presents photographer Oliver Grunewald's amazing
photo essay of a June 2010 expedition to the lava lake sheltered inside the crater.
[more inside]
posted by Joe in Australia
on Mar 5, 2011 -
34 comments
On May 18th, 1980, thirty years ago today, at 8:32 a.m., the ground shook beneath Mount St. Helens in Washington state as a magnitude 5.1 earthquake struck, setting off one of the largest landslides in recorded history - the entire north slope of the volcano slid away. As the land moved, it exposed the superheated core of the volcano setting off gigantic explosions and eruptions of steam, ash and rock debris. The blast was heard hundreds of miles away, the pressure wave flattened entire forests, the heat melted glaciers and set off destructive mudflows, and 57 people lost their lives. A photo-essay.
posted by Nothing... and like it
on May 18, 2010 -
76 comments
In the last two weeks, [NYT] more than 100 mostly tiny earthquakes a day, on average, have rattled a remote area of Yellowstone National Park in Wyoming, putting scientists who monitor the park’s strange and volatile geology on alert. The quake zone, about 10 miles northwest of the Old Faithful geyser, has shown little indication of building toward a larger event, like a
volcanic eruption of the type that last ravaged the Yellowstone region tens of thousands of years ago. Don't rest too easily, though:
new studies of the plumbing that feeds the Yellowstone supervolcano shows the plume and the magma chamber under the volcano are larger than first thought and contradicts claims that only shallow hot rock exists. For more info, check out
this exhaustive site that tracks Yellowstone tectonic activity and details a possible supervolcano event. [
previously]
posted by billysumday
on Feb 1, 2010 -
109 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
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
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
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
"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
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 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
