Two weeks ago, a deadly volcanic tsunami struck in Indonesia’s Sunda Strait, catching residents by surprise.
Clouds have obscured people from capturing the aftermath, but earth observation company Planet Labs managed to capture high resolution images…
Category: Volcano
Explaining the deadly volcanic tsunami that hit Indonesia
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Hundreds are dead, with more missing, following a tsunami that took the Indonesian coast by surprise on Dec. 22.
But this was no typical tsunami. Rather, it was a volcanic tsunami, and understanding what that means may help explain why this particular manifestation of nature’s power was so devastating.
The tsunami that struck between the Sumatra and Java islands was triggered not by an earthquake — as is typically the case with tsunamis — but instead by an active volcano in the area known as Anak Krakatau. The volcano reportedly partially collapsed, triggering a landslide underwater, which then in turn kicked off the tsunami, said Dwikorita Karnawati, who leads Indonesia’s meteorological agency, according to multiple news reports. Read more…
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View More Explaining the deadly volcanic tsunami that hit Indonesia18 American volcanoes get a ‘very high’ threat rating from the USGS
Of the 161 volcanoes found in the United States, 18 of them are considered a “very high” threat in any eruption scenario.
That’s a stat from the “2018 update to the U.S. Geological Survey national volcanic threat assessment.” As the mouthful of a tit…
Hawaii’s newest volcanic cone is over 100 feet tall. How will it be named?
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The town of Volcano is swaying, back and forth.
“It’s been rocking and rolling,” Bobby Camara, a Volcano resident who spent decades working as a ranger at the nearby Hawaii Volcanoes National Park, said from his Big Island home.
Though the tremors are mild, they still cause the lamps in Camara’s house to gently swing.
“You feel like you’re drunk or on a boat — the quakes are quite subtle,” Camara said.
For over three months, the southeastern portion of Hawaii has been quaking and gushing lava, though the vigorously erupting lava recently took a pause. Read more…
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View More Hawaii’s newest volcanic cone is over 100 feet tall. How will it be named?Something much weirder than a ‘supervolcano’ is brewing under New England
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No, there isn’t a supervolcano brewing beneath New England, despite what some media outlets are saying.
That said, something weird is going on about 100 miles below the lush New England ground.
Scientists have found a mass of warmer rock that appears to be welling upwards. This research, led by geophysicist Vadim Levin, appeared last year in the scientific journal Geology.
“We never advocated it could lead to volcanism,” Levin, who performs research at Rutgers University–New Brunswick’s Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, said in an interview. Read more…
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View More Something much weirder than a ‘supervolcano’ is brewing under New EnglandA drone flew over the Fuego volcano’s hellish aftermath in Guatemala. Here’s what it saw.
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There’s no question that Guatemala’s Volcán de Fuego is a deadly mountain. Beginning June 3, the volcano sent chaotic avalanches of rock and gas down its sides, and as of June 13 the eruptions had taken 110 lives, with some 200 people still missing.
Since those initial scorching avalanches — known as pyroclastic flows — local resident Jozef Stano used a drone, which can be operated from more than 4 miles away, to circle the still ominously steaming volcano.
The footage is from June 10, a day that provided Stano a good opportunity to view the eruption’s aftermath. Read more…
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NASA will visit an undersea volcano in Hawaii to figure out how to hunt for aliens
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NASA will soon visit Hawaii’s Lo’ihi volcano, which sits more than 3,000 feet beneath the Pacific Ocean, all in the name of one day hunting for life out in the solar system.
The NASA expedition, called SUBSEA, endeavors to visit underwater volcanoes — which are often rich in colorful mats of microbial life — to better grasp how life might exist in deep, harsh, lightless places in our solar system.
Lo’ihi is an active volcano sitting about 50 miles off the coast of the Big Island.
NASA — which plans to launch the mission in August — will use the rocks and bacteria it collects from the volcano to plan ambitious robotic explorations of these water worlds, should the agency get funding. Read more…
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Don’t let lava stop you from visiting Hawaii
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The images are downright apocalyptic. With plumes of ash and glowing lava, the area around Mount Kilauea looks more like Mordor than a tropical paradise.
That hasn’t been great for tourism. National Park System economist Lynne Koontz told the New York Times the local economy is losing $455,000 per day.
SEE ALSO: Can I roast a marshmallow over lava?
Still, if you’ve got a plane ticket to Hawaii, there’s no need to cancel your trip — you’ll be fine.
First of all, the Big Island of Hawaii is, well, big. The volcano is erupting on a tiny corner of an island that measures more than 4,000 square miles, which is more than double the area of the entire state of Delaware. Most of the big resorts are in Kona, on the island’s west side. That’s about 100 miles from the volcano. Read more…
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View More Don’t let lava stop you from visiting Hawaii6 oddly mesmerizing live videos of lava gushing from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano
Like moths to a flame, humans are frequently most attracted to what we know is dangerous. And there is no better example of this than the strange, alluring beauty of the lava spewing from Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano this May.
On May 4, fissures along th…
Stunning helicopter footage shows Hawaii volcano’s fast-moving lava flow
The United States Geological Survey released stunning new footage on Saturday showing the lava pouring from a fissure created by activity around Kilauea, an active volcano in Hawaii that exploded Thursday morning.
The footage, which was filmed just b…
Deep beneath the Pacific, another active Hawaiian volcano waits to emerge
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As Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano continues to spew lava into neighborhoods and eject foreboding plumes of dark ash into the sky, a nearby underwater volcano named Lo‘ihi patiently waits to rise above the surface.
Like all Hawaiian volcanoes, dead and alive, Lo‘ihi has grown steadily from the depths of the Pacific Ocean as lava spews from it and quickly cools, slowly adding more mass to the underwater mountain.
If Lo‘ihi keeps erupting lava, gradually building up its surface area, the active volcano could very well become Hawaii’s next Big Island volcano. It’s also possible that the volcano could even start its own, brand new Hawaiian island. Read more…
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View More Deep beneath the Pacific, another active Hawaiian volcano waits to emergeVolcano in Indonesia unleashes massive explosion
Mount Sinabung in Indonesia has been erupting for about the past five years now, displacing tens of thousands as it sends debris flows toward populated areas. On Feb. 19, the volcano unleashed a far more explosive eruption that vaulted smoke and ash …
View More Volcano in Indonesia unleashes massive explosion