Albert’s article Volcanoes and rain explores the possible links between volcanic eruptions and subsequent periods of wet weather. But there is another side to this story: rain can, in turn, have ...

Life in paradise can be hard. Paradise is a Greek word of Persian origin made famous by the Jewish bible: it comes from a mix of very different cultures. The word means a walled garden. The garden ...

Let’s image the simplest, most boring volcano possible. It consists of a magma balloon fed by a straw. The ground is perfectly flat above the balloon. Magma comes up the straw at a constant rate. It ...

Along the western edge of South America, the Andes Mountains encompass one of the largest concentrations of volcanoes on Earth. Many of these volcanoes are active, and in the historical record of just ...

Living near the sea can be good. First and foremost, the sea provides a food supply in the form of fish and shellfish which is available throughout the year. The open water provides fast transport ...

It came as a shock – quite literally. It shouldn’t have, because a recent paper had predicted that the area was preparing for a large earthquake. On 29 July, at 23:25 UTC, the 5 th largest earthquake ...

The double-booked land is also known as the Afar Triangle, a low-lying region wedged into the Ethiopian Plateau. The region is not for the intrepid. The name is synonymous with remoteness. It is also ...

To me, it’s an eruption because it’s throwing rocks and it’s on a volcano. It could be phreatic or magmatic. It’s phreatic if it’s driven by heated groundwater, or magmatic gasses from an intrusion, ...

Here is the famous Steppe, the dry grass-land, the never-ending plain stretching across Eurasia from China to Hungary. Rainfall is too limited for trees to grow. The climate is harsh, with hot summers ...

Indeed, hail is not as dramatic or deadly as hurricanes, or tornadoes, or floods, which are far, far better documented in contemporary literature. But they are a very relevant meteorological ...

I loved Naples. It is a lively Mediterranean city where there is always something going on. The people are amazing. I was told (a long time ago) by someone whose wife was from there that they were ...

The parent is famous. The shock waves of the eruption of Krakatoa in 1883 reverberated around the world – in the atmosphere, in the sea and in the news media. This was the first large eruption in the ...