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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 current Decade Volcano Program First of all, let me make one thing abundantly clear. This is a list put forth by us as suggestion for a new Decade Volcano program. But, in the end it is the ...

In my last article I wrote about the Turkana, volcanism that is part of the Great African Rift. But unbeknownst to most this is just one of several rift systems in Africa that are tearing the ...

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 ...

Europe has few volcanoes. It lacks the volcanic magnificence of Indonesia, the grandeur of the Andes, the destructiveness of a St Helens or the beauty of a Fuji. But it can hold its own. This small ...

I love large caldera volcanoes. The first reason is that they are always very beautiful, especially if they have lakes in them. The second reason is that most of them are of a class of volcanoes that ...

Seeing a hill rise up in front of your eyes where there was a lake just weeks before, and seeing it happen close to a major city, that would be something. Perhaps the Neapolitans could have stayed ...