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A couple of weeks ago I posted some Merapi eruption photos (actually, it think it was Mayon; I did find some earlier pictures of pyroclastic flows on Merapi). I noted how difficult it was to find good pictures of the recent activity (still true; most of the photos weren't that great). Well... I found some good great ones. A couple are below; go to the link for the full set.

Since Merapi is in the news, here's a few more pictures. The Washington Post had an amazing shot of the pyroclastic flows that came down the mountain yesterday, but I can't link to it. If you want to see it, go to the Washington Post home page, search on "Merapi", and look for the photo entitled "Mount Merapi Erupts with Clouds of Gas : May 15: Smoke billows from Mount Merapi volcano in Central Java, Indonesia". The photo below (which is from Shanghai Daily, so I'm not sure if it will always show up) is similar: The image below is...

I saw a picture of this on VolcanoDiscovery, and went to the USGS site for pictures. To see more, go to the linked site, click "Current Eruption - Photo Archives". The pictures are "below the fold", and you can see the high-res BIG shots. They don't have the May 6 picture I saw on Volcano Discovery (go to Volcano News), but the May 4 pictures are still pretty impressive. The "Spine of Mount St. Helens" title is a historical reference to the big spine that appeared in the crater of Mt. Pelee after the pyroclastic flow eruption that wiped out...

Because Mount Merapi in Indonesia is threatening to blow, and because "nuee ardentes" or pyroclastic flows are the major concern, I thought a few pictures of hot flaming clouds of gas would be appropriate. The first is from a previous eruption of Merapi: Source page: http://www.univ-orleans.fr/sciences/GEOLOGIE/res_ped/volcano/pelee2002/french/1902_nuees2/soufriere.htm The next is one coming down the side of Mount St. Helens in August 1980, three months after the big blast in May. Page source: http://vulcan.wr.usgs.gov/Volcanoes/MSH/Images/pyroclastic_flows.html And third, a nice shot of a flow and incandescent rockfall on Montserrat from Stromboli On-Line: Page source: http://www.swisseduc.ch/stromboli/perm/montserrat/flows-en.html

Brooklyn College Associate Professor of Anthropology and Archaeology Alfred L. Rosenberger is part of a team of Argentinean and United States scholars who have identified a new species of monkey that once roamed the forests of South America. The discovery of the monkey species, Killikaike blakei, is the result of painstaking analysis of a small, perfectly preserved monkey skull that was found embedded in volcanic rock by members of an Argentinean ranching family. The results are published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science. This fossil, which is dated to 16.4 million years ago, is a spectacular addition...

Whole communities of ape-like creatures may have been killed in volcanic disasters that struck East Africa 18 million years ago... It follows a study of rock deposits close to the once active volcano Kisingiri. These contained fossils of what is believed to be a forerunner of humans called Proconsul... research suggests they may have been caught by a pyroclastic flow. These are clouds of hot gas, dust and rubble which travel at huge speeds from erupting volcanoes. Scientists, who report their findings in the Journal of the Geological Society, believe the abundance of the hominoid fossils may represent "death...