Rafts of pumice, spewed from an undersea volcano, recently appeared in the South Pacific. These transient, movable islands are important toeholds for marine life like barnacles, coral, and macroalgae.
volcanoes
Posted inNews
Alexander R. “Mac” McBirney (1924–2019)
This former West Point graduate and coffee grower transformed igneous petrology and volcanology.
Posted inEditors' Highlights
Finessing Granular Flows
Granular flows are important in geophysics to the pyroclastic flow, debris flow, and avalanches. Understanding their complex and rich physics is therefore important in simulating their dynamics.
Posted inScience Updates
Seismic Sensors Probe Lipari’s Underground Plumbing
An international team of scientists installed a novel, dense network of 48 seismic sensors on the island of Lipari to investigate the active magma system underground.
Posted inFeatures
Honoring Volcanologist David Johnston as a Hero and a Human
A new biography details the life and legacy of the scientist who died on Mount St. Helens.
Posted inScience Updates
Planning an International Magma Observatory
A planned project will drill into a magma reservoir in Iceland that has never erupted to the surface, giving scientists a fresh look at Earth’s underground “plumbing.”
Posted inScience Updates
Monitoring Volcanic Craters with Infrasound “Music”
Volcanic craters act as giant horns that emit intense low-frequency sounds. Changes in this infrasound may be used to track rising lava lakes and identify signals of future eruptions.
Posted inNews
Role of Continental Arcs in Global Carbon Dioxide Emissions
Continental arcs are a major player in global carbon dioxide emissions, but quantifying that relationship is hard. A new study accepts the challenge on a global scale over 750 million years.
Posted inNews
Eruption in El Salvador Was One of the Holocene’s Largest
Roughly 1,500 years ago, the Tierra Blanca Joven eruption blanketed Central America in ash and likely displaced Maya settlements, new research shows.
Posted inResearch Spotlights
Paleomagnetism Indicators May Be Flawed
A new study finds that magnetism in volcanic ash tuff forms through varied processes, calling into question previously reliable signatures used to study variations in Earth’s magnetic field.