They’re the classic science fair project, the cause of Pompeii’s poetic preservation, and fall into the category of things like dinosaurs and dump trucks in that children seem to universally find them awesome (at least in my experience). Any why not? They can be blazing hot, explosive, rumbly, ominously dormant between spurts of activity, and even a bit gooey. Today, science does volcanoes.
Astronauts took epic pictures of an Alaskan volcano from the space station
Alaska has 52 active volcanoes. On May 13th, one called Pavlof started erupting molten rock from its north flank. As the lava hit the surrounding ice and snow, it caused huge steam clouds and created a streak across the sky stretching for 100 miles. Astronauts recently released pictures they took of this plume of steam, ash, and gas from the space station, and they’re quite remarkable. Cloud cover has rendered Pavlof invisible from space at this time, but seismic and temperature data indicate it’s likely still erupting.
- NASA
Argentina and Chile order evacuation of about 3,000 people due to a volcano
Copahue volcano, which straddles the border between Argentina and Chile, has been spewing ash and gas since Saturday morning, and raining ash on both sides of the border. While it hasn’t actually erupted yet, the local alert has been raised to red, its highest level. Copahue registered high seismic activity with an ash cloud in December, but its last major eruption was in 1992.
Scientists hope to get better at predicting volcanic eruptions in Iceland
Anyone who tried to fly anywhere in Western or Northern Europe in April 2010 should remember Eyjafjallajökull, the troublesome, oft-mispronounced volcano that grounded planes in 20 countries for days. Volcanologists in Iceland hope to keep events like that from recurring by improving their seismic activity detection skills.
UWTV streams a documentary called “Down to the Volcano” about building a deep ocean laboratory
The laboratory is to be built on the edge of an active submarine volcano, over a mile below the surface of the land. The documentary, which is watchable on UWTV, follows the team of engineers as they put this together. Segments will be progressively updated to the website as progress is made on the project. The first section (about 30 min) is already posted. Take a look here: