Volcanoes News

October 21, 2024

Top Headlines

Echoes from the Past: A Geological Mystery Unravelled on Easter Island

Oct. 16, 2024 — A mysterious find on Easter Island, investigated by a team of geologists, suggests that the Earth's mantle seems to behave differently than once ...

Tongan Volcanic Eruption Triggered by Explosion as Big as 'Five Underground Nuclear Bombs'

Sep. 30, 2024 — The Hunga Tonga underwater volcano was one of the largest volcanic eruptions in history, and now, two years later, new research has revealed its main ...

Extinct Volcanoes a 'Rich' Source of Rare Earth Elements

Sep. 24, 2024 — A mysterious type of iron-rich magma entombed within extinct volcanoes is likely abundant with rare earth elements and could offer a new way to source these in-demand metals, according to new research. Rare earth elements are found in smartphones, ...

Recent Volcanic 'Fires' in Iceland Triggered by Storage and Melting in Crust

July 31, 2024 — Scientists have detected geochemical signatures of magma pooling and melting beneath the subsurface during the 'Fagradalsfjall Fires', that began on Iceland's Reykjanes peninsula in 2021. Samples ...

Latest Headlines

updated 11:26pm EDT

New Study Disputes Hunga Tonga Volcano's Role in 2023-24 Global Warm-Up

July 26, 2024 — New research is exploring the climate impact of the 2022 Hunga Tonga volcano eruption and challenging existing assumptions about its effects in the ...

Iceland's Volcano Eruptions May Last Decades

June 26, 2024 — Scientists predict from geochemical data that Iceland is entering a new volcanic era that will last for decades, possibly centuries. Under an hour's drive from the country's capital city, the ongoing ...

Video Analysis of Iceland 2010 Eruption Could Improve Volcanic Ash Forecasts for Aviation Safety

June 13, 2024 — Video footage of Iceland's 2010 Eyjafjallaj kull eruption is providing researchers with rare, up-close observations of volcanic ash clouds -- ...

Mapping Lava Flows With Groundbreaking Field Instrument

June 4, 2024 — Researchers develop a tool for measuring the viscosity of lava that could increase our understanding of molten rock as well as better improve models of its movement, giving authorities crucial ...

Earth Scientists Describe a New Kind of Volcanic Eruption

May 27, 2024 — By analyzing the dynamics of 12 back-to-back explosions that happened in 2018, researchers describe a new type of volcanic eruption mechanism. The explosions were driven by sudden pressure increases ...

Highly Sensitive Fiber Optic Gyroscope Senses Rotational Ground Motion Around Active Volcano

May 21, 2024 — Researchers have built a prototype fiber optic gyroscope for high resolution, real-time monitoring of ground rotations caused by earthquakes in the ...

Clues from Deep Magma Reservoirs Could Improve Volcanic Eruption Forecasts

May 10, 2024 — New research into molten rock 20km below the Earth's surface could help save lives by improving the prediction of volcanic ...

Cloud Engineering Could Be More Effective 'Painkiller' for Global Warming Than Previously Thought

Apr. 11, 2024 — Cloud 'engineering' could be more effective for climate cooling than previously thought, because of the increased cloud cover produced, new research ...

Biggest Holocene Volcano Eruption Found by Seabed Survey

Feb. 22, 2024 — A detailed survey of the volcanic underwater deposits around the Kikai caldera in Japan clarified the deposition mechanisms as well as the event's magnitude. As a result, the research team found that ...

Massive 2022 Eruption Reduced Ozone Layer Levels

Nov. 20, 2023 — The Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai volcano changed the chemistry and dynamics of the stratosphere in the year following the eruption, leading to unprecedented losses in the ozone layer of up to 7% over ...

Human Emissions Increased Mercury in the Atmosphere Sevenfold

Nov. 1, 2023 — Researchers estimated that before humans started pumping mercury into the atmosphere, it contained on average about 580 megagrams of mercury. However, in 2015, independent research that looked at all ...

Mystery of Volcanic Tsunami Solved After 373 Years

Oct. 26, 2023 — The explosion of the underwater volcano Kolumbo in the Aegean Sea in 1650 triggered a destructive tsunami that was described by historical eye witnesses. A group of researchers has now surveyed ...

California Supervolcano Is Cooling Off but May Still Cause Quakes

Oct. 18, 2023 — New high-resolution images of the Long Valley Caldera indicate that the subsurface environment is cooling off, releasing gas and fluids that contribute to seismic ...

Volcanic Ash Effects on Earth Systems

Oct. 4, 2023 — To bridge the knowledge gap between volcanologists and atmospheric scientists working on climate change and observing global systems, researchers have characterized volcanic ash samples from many ...

Crucial Third Clue to Finding New Diamond Deposits

Sep. 19, 2023 — Researchers studying diamond-rich rocks from Western Australia's Argyle volcano have identified the missing third key ingredient needed to bring valuable pink diamonds to the Earth's ...

Two out of Three Volcanoes Are Little-Known. How to Predict Their Eruptions?

Aug. 31, 2023 — What is the risk of a volcano erupting? To answer this question, scientists need information about its underlying internal structure. However, gathering this data can take several years of fieldwork, ...

Atmospheric Circulation Weakens Following Volcanic Eruptions

Aug. 23, 2023 — An international team of scientists found that volcanic eruptions can cause the Pacific Walker Circulation to temporarily weaken, inducing El Niño-like conditions. The results provide important ...

Carbon Dioxide -- Not Water -- Triggers Explosive Basaltic Volcanoes

Aug. 7, 2023 — Geoscientists have long thought that water -- along with shallow magma stored in Earth's crust -- drives volcanoes to erupt. Now, thanks to newly developed research tools, scientists have ...

Research Reveals Hawai'i's Undersea Volcano, Kama'ehu, Erupted Five Times in Past 150 Years

Aug. 3, 2023 — Kama?ehuakanaloa (formerly L??ihi Seamount), a submarine Hawaiian volcano located about 20 miles off the south coast of the Big Island of Hawai'i, has erupted at least five times in the last 150 ...

Lasering Lava to Forecast Volcanic Eruptions

July 5, 2023 — Researchers have optimized a new technique to help forecast how volcanoes will behave, which could save lives and property around the ...

Research Reveals Sources of CO2 from Aleutian-Alaska Arc Volcanoes

June 28, 2023 — Scientists have wondered what happens to the organic and inorganic carbon that Earth's Pacific Plate carries with it as it slides into the planet's interior along the volcano-studded Ring ...

Climate Change Will Increase Impacts of Volcanic Eruptions

June 28, 2023 — Volcanic disasters have been studied since Pompeii was buried in 79 A.D., leading the public to believe that scientists already know why, where, when and how long volcanoes will erupt. But a ...

Effect of Volcanic Eruptions Significantly Underestimated in Climate Projections

June 23, 2023 — Researchers have found that the cooling effect that volcanic eruptions have on Earth's surface temperature is likely underestimated by a factor of two, and potentially as much as a factor of ...

A Tongan Volcano Plume Produced the Most Intense Lightning Rates Ever Detected

June 20, 2023 — New research showed that the plume emitted by the Hunga Volcano eruption in 2022 created the highest lightning flash rates ever recorded on Earth, more than any storm ever ...

Campi Flegrei Volcano Edges Closer to Possible Eruption

June 9, 2023 — The new study used a model of volcano fracturing to interpret patterns of earthquakes and ground uplift, and concluded that parts of the volcano had been stretched nearly to breaking ...

South Africa, India and Australia Shared Similar Volcanic Activity 3.5 Billion Years Ago

June 8, 2023 — The Daitari greenstone belt shares a similar geologic make-up when compared to the greenstones exposed in the Barberton and Nondweni areas of South Africa and those from the Pilbara Craton of ...

Petit-Spot Volcanoes Involve the Deepest Known Submarine Hydrothermal Activity, Possibly Release CO2 and Methane

June 1, 2023 — Underwater volcanism and its hydrothermal activity play an important role in marine biogeochemical cycles, especially the carbon cycle. But the nature of hydrothermal activity at ...

Extinct Offshore Volcano Could Store Gigatons of Carbon Dioxide

May 23, 2023 — A new study concludes that an extinct volcano off the shore of Portugal could store as much as 1.2-8.6 gigatons of carbon dioxide, the equivalent of ~24-125 years of the country's industrial ...

Eruption of Tonga Underwater Volcano Found to Disrupt Satellite Signals Halfway Around the World

May 22, 2023 — Researchers found that the Hunga-Tonga eruption was associated with the formation of an equatorial plasma bubble in the ionosphere, a phenomenon associated with disruption of satellite-based ...

2022 Tongan Volcanic Explosion Was Largest Natural Explosion in Over a Century, New Study Finds

Apr. 14, 2023 — The 2022 eruption of a submarine volcano in Tonga was more powerful than the largest U.S. nuclear explosion, according to a new study. The 15-megaton volcanic explosion from Hunga Tonga-Hunga ...