Free Republic

Tens of thousands of people have evacuated their land in Bali as the nearby volcano Mount Agung angrily spits ash and its magma rises. Many Balinese hold the mountain sacred and accept its occasional outbursts as moral admonishments whereas geologists consider this activity a routine part of Earth’s behavior. But scientists have found another force - climate change - affects the frequency of eruptions. Now a new study shows even relatively minor climate variations may have such an influence. If they are right, today’s global warming could mean more and bigger volcanic eruptions in the future. The new study is...

Mount Agung in Bali is experiencing unprecedented levels of seismic activity and could erupt in a “matter of hours” if tremors continue, Indonesia’s volcanology centre has said. More than 75,000 people have been evacuated in the last few days as Agung, the highest point of the island, has experienced hundreds of internal volcanic earthquakes. “Instrumentally we have never recorded such high energy or seismicity from Mount Agung,” Devy Kamil Syahbana, a seismologist from Indonesia’s centre for volcanology and geological hazard mitigation, told the Guardian. Data showed that Mount Agung experienced 844 volcanic earthquakes on Monday, and 300 to 400 earthquakes...