Free Republic

19 July 2011 Last updated at 00:07 ET Help A scientist tries to get a lava sample from Mount Nyiragongo in Africa's Great Rift Valley, but gets too close to the boiling lake. Dr Dario Tedesco, from the University of Naples, one of the world's leading authorities on the volcano, tries to alert the scientist whose life is at risk. Mount Nyiragongo is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Scientists want to take lava samples from volcanoes because it can give vital clues about what is happening deep inside the planet.

A new vent that opened Saturday on Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano continued to erupt yesterday, throwing lava 80 feet into the air. The fissure opened up after Puu Oo crater collapsed on Saturday, sending up a giant plume of ash. The crater — and the new vent nearby — are in a remote area about 10 miles east of the Jagger Museum in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park. The fissure now measures 1.4 miles long, with lava continuing to erupt up and down the vent. This development is considered part of the larger volcanic eruption that began in 1983, and has...

Well, I'm slightly stumped. I lost the URL address where I found this (on Flickr - I just kept the URL for the picture itself). It's a nice sea arch, on the Island of Capri I think, but I'm not sure. So heck, if anyone can confirm that's where it's located, knock yourself out. Click for 2x. BONUS: I can't link to these in the grand tradition of the Geology Picture of the Week, but you can peruse them and save any of them that you like. Some of the lava lake surface pictures are very abstract. Nyiragongo lava lake,...

Sorry again about not being circumspect about posting every week. So I'll do two in a row. The first one is reticulite. It's not a sponge, it's a rock. From the Earth Science Picture of the Day, where this was a top pick for 2010: http://epod.usra.edu/blog/vote-2010.htmlCaption: Pumice is a glassy volcanic rock that's so full of bubbles that most examples will float on water. Reticulite is an extreme form of pumice in which the bubbles have coalesced, leaving only a tenuous reticular network of glassy lava behind in the interstitial spaces between the bubbles. While pumice is more characteristic of...

Still trying to get back on a normal schedule; so laziness-wise, here are pictures of my favorite things, from the same page: A lava lake (Chile's Villarica) Villarica is a good-looking peak A waterfall (Chile's Rio Truful) And to finish it off, here's a volcano (the famously symmetrical Osorno) and a waterfall (Saltos del Petrohue) in the same picture: I recognize and commend all those who have worked in rescue-and-recovery missions or donated to support of the victims of the earthquakes in Haiti and Chile.

Dumping all our nuclear waste in a volcano does seem like a neat solution for destroying the roughly 29,000 tons of spent uranium fuel rods stockpiled around the world. But there’s a critical standard that a volcano would have to meet to properly dispose of the stuff, explains Charlotte Rowe, a volcano geophysicist at Los Alamos National Laboratory. And that standard is heat. The lava would have to not only melt the fuel rods but also strip the uranium of its radioactivity. “Unfortunately,” Rowe says, “volcanoes just aren’t very hot.” Lava in the hottest volcanoes tops out at around 2,400F....

Yes, I know I missed the last week of the year; I've been busy and still trying to catch up and dig out. Meanwhile, there were eruptions, including one of the best "curtains of fire" I've seen since Eldfell. Curtain of fire on Nyamuragira: From here: chitravini's photostream (go to page 2) Lava flow on the side of Piton de la Fournaise's main crater: From here: Paysages de la Reunion And finally, the lava pit inside Halemaumau (Kilauea, Hawaii), has been putting on a great show over the past few days: (click for full-size) Link to Webcam page

The picture isn't that spectacular; the video (in Quicktime) is. When I saw this I knew it had to be a Geopic of the week (sorry I'm late). The movie is in real-time. Turn up the sound. If you're wondering what this is, it's a view down the throat of the Hale'maumau vent. I wonder if this will eventually rise and fill the crater floor, even if only briefly -- that would be a sight. http://hvo.wr.usgs.gov/kilauea/update/archive/2009/Jun/HMMvent_03June2009web3.mov

With Fernandina on the Galapagos still pouring lava into the oceans, I thought I'd post a couple of impressive ocean entry videos I found along with an image. The first video is Fernandina, the next two are Kilauea (Hawaii). Eruption in the Galapagos Islands (lava entry at night) Waikupanaha Ocean Lavafalls Kalapana ocean entry with lightning (and also a waterspout)

Click the source link to see the article (and a link to a larger version) of this picture: Here's a ground-level view of a portion, looking a lot like a vegetated version of the Goosenecks of Utah (click for full-size):

Piton de la Fournaise, the Indian Ocean analog to Kilauea on the French island analog to Hawaii, started erupting on September 21. It's a cute little eruption (unlike the last one, one of Fournaise's largest), with lava fountains on the side of the crater pouring down the slope to form a pond. Picture below; the linked Web site above has to very nice videos. Turn down the volume of the top one, though.

Background: Several months ago, a vent opened explosively in Halemaumau, the crater inside the caldera of Kileaua volcano. Halemaumau used to be famous (notably due to a description from Mark Twain) as the location of a lava lake, fairly easily accessible by visitors. The lava lake disappeared in 1924 during a series of explosive phreatic eruptions (steam and hot rock). The lake has appeared briefly since then, such as in 1967. Famous photo of explosive eruption from Halemaumau The new vent has been producing a steady cloud of SO2 (occasionally irritating residents on Oahu) since it opened. There have been...

Scale is impossible to judge when there's nothing nearby with a size you can judge by: this lava fountain on the flow field of Kilauea is 12-15 meters high. Click for full-size. Click: Kilauea Eruption Images to access a Quicktime movie of this fountain.

Just a cool-looking shot from space.

Sendhwa (Madhya Pradesh), Apr 16 : Small quantities of molten rock erupted near a habitation at Sendhwa near Indore, leaving neighbourhoods awestruck. Locals said the eruption began with a small explosion on Tuesday causing a two-feel wide gap in the soil. The eruptions continued with less intensity on Wednesday with the lava cooling around causing a small hump like structure. People from places in the vicinity rushed to the spot to watch the natural phenomenon. "When I got to know about this volcano, we came here to see this. We saw that this vermilion coloured eruption coming out of the...

First, the pyramids of Renon, a small cluster of hoodoos in the Dolomite region of Italy. Second, an impressive shot of Kilauea lava. This one's close enough for marshmallows. Lava flows reached the sea again a few days ago -- the flow that reached the sea cut straight through the middle of the remaining uncovered "kipuka" of the Royal Gardens subdivision, made famous as the various previous flows devoured homes. I think there are two inhabited homes still there; I don't know how they fared with this most recent flow, but I haven't seen pictures of flaming homes on TV...

When last we visited Kilauea (I think), the Pu'u O'o crater was hosting an active lava lake, and I thought there was a possibility of an overflow or a below-rim outbreak. Neither happened. Instead, the lava lake drained smoothly and a fissure eruption commenced. This is where all the action is currently. If you want to see where it's located, click the Maps link at the header link. I realized that I hadn't checked for images of this for more than a month. So I did. Below is my favorite, reduced to half-size. Click on it for full-size.

Two things: one, in August a fissure eruption took place in the highly active African Rift Valley in Ethiopia. It was initially detected as a cloud of sulfur dioxide gas. Not a whole lot of pictures of this place; it's described as an "uplifted segment of a mid-ocean ridge spreading center". So an eruption here is like seeing what happens normally deep in the ocean. Here's the view from space. and two, I discovered this very cool time-lapse movie of the recent short-lived lava lake in the Pu'u O'o crater of Kilauea. Very fun to watch. Episode 57 West Vent...

Don't look back... there's a lava flow behind you. (Click for full size) What's been happening: the lava lake in the Pu'u O'o crater drained, and a new fissure eruption began in an area where there hadn't been active lava since 1992. The man in the picture is standing in front of a "perched pond" -- an flat area, sometimes with rubble rims, where the lava in the flow pools before flowing further downslope. According to the daily update, it appears that the activity from the fissures may be declining. Wild-guess prediction: we may be seeing the end stages of...

The link above goes to the Webcam on the rim of Kilauea's Pu'u O'o crater. After a brief eruption hiatus last week, lava has returned to the crater, and the crater is hosting an active lava pond/lake. According the web site, nighttime views are spectacular. Close examination of the images when they change every five minutes indicates that the pond is active. Eruption Update Page