Volcanoes and Earthquakes

My interest in volcanoes and earthquakes forms a subset of my general interest in catastrophism. Volcanoes can effect global climate changes through injection of large quantities of ash into the atmosphere. These dust veils can lead to lower temperatures and dimmer days, which in turn lead to crop failures, which in turn lead to starvation and migration, which in turn lead to war, the spread of disease, the fall of old civilizations, and the birth of new ones. Extensive, prolonged vulcanism may play a part in mass extinctions as well. See catastrophism and mass extinctions for more information.

Similar "nuclear winter" consequences can also arise from energetic impact events of the super-Tunguska class. See Clube and Napier's book Cosmic Winter for details.

• Akrotiri And The Santorini Volcano discusses the late bronze age eruption of the Santorini (Thera) volcano. Includes information on the sequence of eruptive events, the impact of the explosion beyond Thera, frescoes from Akrotiri, comparisons of Theran mural painting with contemporary Minoan frescos, and a bibliography.
• Alaska Volcano Observatory is a cooperative program of the United States Geological Survey, the University of Alaska Fairbanks Geophysical Institute, and the Alaska Division of Geological and Geophysical Surveys. Offers information on current volcanic activity in Alaska and Kamchatka.
• American Rescue Team was founded in 1985 to save lives, reduce suffering and to assist in the reduction of the devastating aftermath caused by catastrophic events such as earthquakes.
• Arenal Volcano discusses this volcano which lies about ten miles from Monteverde in Costa Rica.
• Arenal Volcano Homepage discusses this stratovolcano "situated in north-western Costa Rica (10.463N, 84.703W), 90 km north-west of San Jos‚é. Less than 3000 years old this andesite-basalt volcano is one of Costa Rica's most active. On July 29th, 1968, after approximately 500 years quiescence, Arenal erupted explosively killing 78 people, and has since been continuously active. Arenal is one of five historically active Costa Rican volcanoes, (Poas, Irazu, Rincon de la Vieja, and Turrialba), and is part of the volcanic chain that makes up the Costa Rican Arc. Situated between the Cordillera de Guanacaste (SE) and the Cordillera Central (NW), Arenal rises 1,657 meters above sea level. Approximately three kilometres south of Arenal, lies the small truncated and likely extinct volcano, Cerro Chato."
• Batur Volcano is an active caldera volcano in northern Bali, Indonesia. This web site by Graeme Wheller discusses the explosive history of the volcano as well as current hazards.
• Boris Behncke's Volcano Page offers information on Italian volcanos. Includes a clickable map of the volcanos as well as detailed descriptions of Stromboli, Vulcano, other Eolian volcanos, Etna, Vesuvio, central Italian volcanos, Campi Flegrei caldera. Also offers continually updated news about volcanic eruptions in Italy and the rest of the world, as well as links to other volcano sites.
• British Antarctic Survey seeks "to undertake a programme of first class science through which an active and influential role can be sustained in the Antarctic region, giving the UK an authoritative voice in Antarctic affairs. BAS research covers all aspects of science and exploits the unique natural laboratory conditions in the Antarctic to address problems of global and regional relevance. BAS also discharges the UK's responsibilities for complying with the Antarctic Treaty and administers the British Antarctic Territory."
• Cascades Volcano Observatory , located in Vancouver, Washington, USA, "strives to serve the public interest by helping people to live knowledgeably and safely with volcanoes and other natural hazards including earthquakes, landslides, and debris flows, in the western United States and elsewhere in the world." Site includes information on Mount St. Helens among other volcanos, hydrologic information, monitoring techniques, education outreach programs, and more.
• Cerro Negro Eruption November 1995 by Ben van Wyk de Vries offers a pictorial report of the first week of the Cerro Negro eruption which began 18 November 1995.
• Chile Lindo: Volcan Navidad (in Spanish) offers a photo of this volcano erupting.
• Chile's Volcanoes by Werner Keller and Boris Behncke offers a clickable map of volcanos in Chile as well as detailed descriptions of Llaima, Villarrica, Mocho-Choshuenco, Calbuco, Puntiagudo, Osorno, and Hudson.
• CoAxial Home Page
• Compiled Volcanology Data CD-ROMs
• Costa Rica-ARENAL Volcano Gallery
• Current seismicity (USGS)
• Daly City Earthquake of 1957 by Richard Marsden discusses the largest earthquake to have occurred on the San Francisco Peninsula since 1906. Includes a paper presented to the AGU, a sound recording of the earthquake, and links to the San Francisco City Museum earthquake pages.
• Deborah K. Smith's Volcanic Topography at the Mid-Atlantic Ridge discusses seafloor volcanic features and offers high resolution side-scan sonar images of the axial zone of the slow-spreading Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
• Decade volcanoes
• Dinosaur Volcano-Greenhouse Extinction (Dewey M. McLean)
• Earth System Science Resource Center
• Earthquake Information
• Earthquake of the Day from the California Institute of Technology offers daily information about earthquakes.
• Earthquake Research Institute, University of Tokyo
• Earthquakes: Most destructive, etc.
• Electronic Volcano (Dartmouth College)
• EPIX: Emergency Preparedness Information Exchange (Gopher)
• Eruptions of Mount Spurr Volcano, Alaska, Photographs of the 1992 Eruptions
• Geological Information Servers (Gopher)
• Geological Survey of Canada is the principal Canadian organization for geological information and research.
• Geological Survey of Japan is available in both English and Japanese.
• Geomorfologia Wirtualna / Virtual Geomorphology
• Geomorphology resources
• Geysers
• Gifford Pinchot National Forest offers information on Mount St. Helens Volcanic Monument and includes a volcanocam which presents live pictures of the volcano, updated every ten minutes of so, from Johnston Ridge Observatory.
• Global Climate Change Information Programme , established in 1991, seeks to provide "the necessary information link between scientists (both natural and social), politicians, economists and the general public" on the subject of climate change.
• Greatest Explosion by Nigel Bunce and Jim Hunt of the University of Guelph discusses the volcanic eruption of Tambora in the year 1815 and its aftermath, including its probable deleterious climatic effects. This eruption of Tambora was probably the largest volcanic explosion in recorded history.
• Gruppo Nazionale per la Vulcanologia (in Italian)
• Hakone is an active volcano located 30 km southeast of Mt. Fuji. The latest eruption took place about 3,000 B.P. This site also offers links to many other volcano resources, including home pages of Japanese individuals interested in volcanos.
• Hawaii Scientific Drilling Project "has drilled a 1056 meter hole in Hilo, Hawaii, retrieving rocks from the Hawaiian volcanoes Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea."
• Hawaiian Volcano Observatory "Volcano Watch" from the University of Hawaii provides a weekly newsletter written by scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey's Hawaiian Volcano Observatory. "Article topics may range from volcanic features on the Big Island, volcanic hazards, informational topics of Long Island, Montserrat, or Alaska, to topics about the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory."
• Hekla
• Indiana State University Volcanology Home Page
• InterRidge Home Page
• Jason Project
• Journal of the Volcanic Homepage is "devoted to the publication of new and interesting topics in volcanology."
• Lamb's Dust Veil Index offers H. H. Lamb's database of "dust veil indices (DVI) for the period 1500 A.D. to 1983 A.D. along with estimates for the eruptions of Santorin in 1470 B.C., Vesuvius in 79 A.D., and Oraefajokull in 1362 A.D. Lamb's Dust Veil Index (DVI) is a numerical index that quantifies the impact of a particular volcanic eruption's release of dust and aerosols over the years following the event, especially the impact on the Earth's energy balance. The methods used to calculate the DVI have been intercalibrated to give a DVI of 1000 for the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883. The DVI for any volcanic eruption is based on a review of the observational, empirical, and theoretical studies of the possible impact on climate of volcanic dust veils. The DVI allows one to compare volcanic eruptions by a single numerical index. The data base includes the name of the erupting volcano, year of eruption, volcano latitude and longitude, maximum extent of the dust veil, veil duration, DVI for the entire globe, DVI for the Northern Hemisphere, and DVI for the Southern Hemisphere. The data are in one file (22.6 kB)."
• Lassen Peak Eruptions, May 19, 1915
• Latin American Volcano Homepage by Glyn Williams-Jones offers a comprehensive list of Latin American volcano pages.
• Long Valley Caldera
• Martian Volcanoes
• Metis Shoal, Tonga Islands
• Michigan Tech Univ. Volcanoes Page , sponsored by the Keweenaw Volcano Observatory, offers information on current global volcanic activity, research in remote sensing of volcanoes and their eruptive products, hazard mitigation, "Decade Volcanoes", links to government agencies and research institutions, and even some volcano humor.
• Mount Erebus Observatory Homepage is located at Ross Island, Antarctica. Mount Erebus is the southernmost active volcano in the world.
• Mount St. Helens images 1980-1986
• Mount St. Helens Topography
• NASA, EOS IDS Volcanology Team
• NASA, Volcanism on Io
• Natural Hazards Databases at National Geophysical Data Center
• Natural Hazards Mitigation Group, University of Geneva at the University of Geneva (Switzerland) provides information about natural hazards research programs and offers a catalog of volcano pictures from around the world.
• Natural Resources Canada {NRCan} is the web site of the official Canadian natural resource department. Offers lots of geological and geophysical information.
• Nordic Volcanological Institute
• Nyiragongo
• Observatoires Volcanologiques francais
• Observatorio Vulcanologico y Sismologico de Pasto
• Oleg Melnik's Page offers his simulation of Plinian volcanic eruptions as well as links to volcano-related sites on the web.
• Open University Volcanology Group offers images from the remote sensing group of this department, and a listing of faculty and graduate students.
• Piton de la Fournaise Slide Set was compiled by Pete Mouginis-Mark of the University of Hawaii. La Fournaise is a volcano located on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean.
• Plate Tectonics , by Jen Marshall, Karl Marsilje, and Tiffany Farriss, looks at the history of plate tectonics, offers a synopsis of modern theories of plate tectonics, discusses the impact of plate tectonics, and presents a short bibliography.
• Pompeii Forum Project by John J. Dobbins "is a collaborative venture that focuses on the urban center of Pompeii...There are three components to the project: documentation of standing remains; archaeological analysis; and urban study that seeks a) to interpret the developments at Pompeii in the broader context of urban history and b) to identify at Pompeii recurring patterns of urban evolution that can be applied to contemporary issues in American urbanism." Pompeii was buried by eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 A.D.
• Popocateptl Photos offers photographs provided by Javier S. Salgado Pareia from Bememerita Universidad Autonoma de Puebla of this Mexican volcano. The photos were taken in June and December of 1994. Also offers AVHRR imagery of Popocateptl.
• Quantitative Estimation of Volcanic Activity discusses studies of the active Japanese volcanos Unzen, Sakura-Kima, Aso, and Asama and their energy releases.
• Recent earthquakes via IndiSeis offers a continuosly updated list of earthquakes monitored at Indiana State University using an S102 Broadband Seismometer linked to a a Quantera GPS-1 clock.
• Rincon de la Vieja is a composite stratovolcano in northwestern Costa Rica. It "forms a NW-trending ridge consisting of several eruptive centers that have coalesced through time. Elevations of the individual cones range from 1670 to 1920 meters and nine craters are readily identified by their topographic expression. Numerous phreatic eruptions have occurred since 1851 (as recently as November, 1995), all from the Active Crater. The last major eruption involving juvenile magma occurred at about 3,500 ypb."
• Ruapehu Erupts by Max Turner describes recent (1995) eruptions of Mount Ruapehu, located on the Central Plateau of the North Island of New Zealand.
• Sakurajima Volcano is located in Japan. About 7,000 people live at the foot of the volcano. The city of Kagoshima, with a population of about half a million, lies 10 km to the west.
• San Francisco History -- Earthquakes from The Museum of the City of San Francisco offers information on the many earthquakes suffered by San Francisco from 1769 to the present.
• Santorini bibliography
• Seismo-surfing the Internet
• Shinji Takarada's Home Page
• Smithsonian Institution - Global Volcanism Program documents over 1,500 volcanic eruptions of the past 10,000 years.
• Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), founded in 1991, "is a Science and Technology Center of the National Science Foundation (NSF) and is also funded by the United States Geological Survey (USGS). SCEC brings scientists together for joint research and problem solving to reduce earthquake hazard in Southern California. The formal mission of the Center is to promote earthquake hazard reduction by estimating when and where future damaging earthquakes will occur, calculating the expected ground motion, and disseminating that information to the public."
• Stromboli project at the Universitadegli Studi di Udine discusses research about Stromboli volcano, one of the Aeolian islands, located north of Sicily. Stromboli has a permanent activity which has been reported for thousands of years. This activity results, from the seismic point of view, in a considerable number of explosion-quakes (several per hour) and in a persistent volcanic tremor. Site includes information on the seismic station located near the summit of the volcano, photos of Stromboli and other volcanos, and a bibliography of scientific papers about Stromboli.
• Surface and Atmospheric Effects of the 1991 Eruption of Mount Pinatubo by Pete Mouginis-Mark provides a slide set and discussion.
• Tatsuro CHIBA's page offers information on current and recent eruptions as well as photographs of volcanos.
• Teacher's Quick Reference Guide to Volcanoes by Diane Morris offers links to web sites about volcanoes.
• Teide photos offers several nice images of this volcano located in the Canary Islands.
• Tephrabase: A Tephrochronological Database from the Department of Geography at the University of Edinburgh offers data on tephra deposits and their source volcanos for Icelandic volcanos.
• United Kingdom Volcanologists Group offers a forum for exchange of information between U.K.-based researchers involved in the study of active volcanism.
• United States Geological Survey is the largest earth science research and information agenvy in the United States. "The USGS, a bureau of the U.S. Department of the Interior, was established to provide a permanent Federal agency to conduct the systematic and scientific 'classification of the public lands and examination of the geological structure, mineral resources, and products of the national domain.' The mission of the USGS is to provide geologic, topographic, and hydrologic information that contributes to the wise management of the Nation's natural resources and that promotes the health, safety, and well-being of the people. This information consists of maps, databases, and descriptions and analyses of the water, energy, and mineral resources, land surface, underlying geologic structure, natural hazards, and dynamic processes of the earth."
• United States Global Change Regional Information Office (GCRIO) "provides access to data and information on global change research, adaptation/mitigation strategies and technologies, and global change related educational resources on behalf the US Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) and its participating Federal Agencies and Organizations. GCRIO is implemented by The Consortium for International Earth Science Information Network (CIESIN)."
• Principal fields of research at the University of Alaska Geophysical Institute include space physics, aeronomy, meteorology, climatology, seismology, volcanology, glaciology, geology, and geophysics.
• University of Cambridge Earth Sciences offers information on the department and its programs
• University of Pisa Volcanology List offers links to volcano-related web sites.
• University of Tokyo Volcano Research Center (VRC) "conducts various scientific researches on magmatic processes and volcano dynamics, which will help to improve prediction of volcanic eruptions. Some of these researches are made in cooperation with other domestic and overseas institutions. Some geophysical data are available from permanent stations set at Asama, Kirishima, Izu-Oshima, Kusatsu-Shirane, and Fuji volcanoes to study volcanic phenomena. One of current major subjects is to reveal features of magma plumbing systems, based on the study of crustal structure below active volcanoes. Other subjects include analysis of various data on volcanoes and characterization of eruptive processes."
• University of Washington Volcano Systems Center is a cooperative effort of the University of Washington and the United States Geological Survey. Site offers a variety of information about current subaerial and submarine volcanological research.
• Unzen: Decade Volcano is situated in the Shimbara Peninsula, Kyushu, Southwest Japan. The volcano started activity about a half million years ago. The present active center, Mount Fugen, lies only 6 km away from the center of Shimabara City with 45,000 residents.
• Volcanic Ash: Danger in the Skies! discusses the danger posed by volcanic ash clouds. "In the past 15 years, more than 80 jet aircraft have been damaged by drifting clouds of volcanic ash, and more than 1,500 people put at risk when engines failed temporarily on 7 airliners."
• Volcanic Ash Forecast Transport And Dispersion (VAFTAD) by Nick Heffter offers an example of real-time display of dispersion models for volcanic ash.
• Volcanic Homepage by Jonathan Dehn describes current work in computer modeling of volcanic eruptions as well as providing information on current eruptions in Japan, photos of volcanos and volcanic land forms from around the world, volcanic animations, a virtual volcano (requires frames and Java), reference materials on volcanic eruptions, guide to volcanologists on the Internet, and safety recommendations for volcanologists and the public.
• Volcanic Jump Station by Jonathan Dehn offers a large set of links to web sites about volcanoes.
• Volcanic Simulation Group (VSG) WWW Server (Italy) in Italy, maintained by Giovanni Macedonio, offers links to web sites about volcanology.
• Volcano Facts offers information on the largest explosive eruptions since 1500, great eruptions of the past, largest eruptions in the last 10,000 years, deadliest eruptions, and active and erupting volcanos.
• Volcano Information Center by Richard V. Fisher seeks to inform "about general features of volcanoes, volcanic eruptions and volcanic hazards in a simplified way." Includes information on volcanic hazards, volcaniclastic names, volcanic eruptions, hydrovolcanic processes, volcano forms, pyroclastic flows and fallout, lahars, debris-flow avalanches, and volcaniclastic sedimentation and facies.
• Volcano Mercenaries of America
• Volcanoes by Robert I. Tilling offers an introduction to the subject, including the nature and types of volcanoes, volcanic environments, monitoring volcanoes, effects on people, and more.
• Volcanoes by Gillian Thornhill offers a brief look at theoretical vulcanology on other planets.
• Volcanoes and Climate Change is a student essay by Mandy Sales, Garrett Purdy, and Wendy Mueller which discusses climatic effects of volcanoes such as Tambora and Mount Pinatubo.
• Volcanoes and Global Climate Change from NASA discusses the cooling effects which result from the injection of particles and gases by volcanic eruptions, including sulfur dioxide, into the atmosphere. Sulfur dioxide converts to aerosols -- tiny persistent sulfuric acid (sulfate) particles -- which reflect incoming solar energy, resulting in a reduction in temperature.
• Volcanoes and Ozone Depletion from the United States Environmental Protection Agency argues against the idea that volcanos are the real source of atmospheric chlorine, rather than Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). This site also provides other information about ozone depletion.
• Volcanological Society of Japan was established in 1932. There were 1,200 members as of 1996. The Society publishes a quarterly bulletin. Indices are available at this site.
• Volcanology at New Mexico Tech describes the program which is particularly strong in antarctic volcanology.
• VolcanoWorld at the University of North Dakota offers information on volcanos of the world, volcanic parks, materials for teachers and students, current eruptions, and more.
• Welcome to Tsunami! from the Department of Geophysics at the University of Washington offers an online interactive tsunami resource. Tsunamis are often associated with both volcanic eruptions and earthquakes as well as cosmic impacts. Includes information on the physics of tsunamis, links to related web sites, a survey of great tsunamis of the past, discussions of tsunami hazard mitigation, and more.
• World-Wide Earthquake Locator from the Department of Geography at the University of Edinburgh provides basic information about earthquakes within hours of their occurrence, using data from the National Earthquake Information Center of the USGS. Also provides general information about earthquakes.
• Yellowstone National Park in the state of Wyoming, USA lies atop a hot spot in the Earth's mantle. Yellowstone has been the site of extensive volcanic eruptions over the past 17 million years. The most recent caldera forming eruption of 650,000 years ago produced a caldera 53x28 miles in size, and dispersed ash, pumice, and gases over an area of more than 3,000 square miles. Today it continues to offer a variety of geothermal phenomena including geysers, hot springs, steam vents, and mud pots.

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