GMPV
Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

Degassing

Volcanism, anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, and mass extinctions

July 7, 2024
Volcanism, anthropogenic carbon dioxide emissions, and mass extinctions
Credit: Ivan Koulakov (distributed via imaggeo.egu.eu)

Only a very small fraction of the energy produced by nuclear fusion in the Sun (3.82 x 1023 kW) reaches the top of the Earth’s atmosphere (1.7 x 1014 kW), and then only about 50% of it reaches the Earth surface, where it is absorbed by the oceans and land. This energy is radiated back as longwave infrared radiation, which is partially absorbed and after reradiated downward to the surface by the gr ...[Read More]

I asked ChatGPT to write a blog about lava lakes: here’s what happened

March 8, 2023
The lava lake of Halemaʻumaʻu at Kilauea, Hawaii
The lava lake of Halemaʻumaʻu at Kilauea, Hawaiʻi (by Ivan Petrovich Vtorov - own work, CC BY-SA 3.0)

If you’ve not been living under a rock you’ve probably heard of ChatGPT, the AI text generator wowing the internet and striking fear into the heart of exam co-ordinators worldwide. I’ve been meaning to write a blog about lava lakes for a while now, ever since rewatching Werner Herzog and Clive Oppenheimer’s excellent documentary Into the Inferno. But with deadlines looming and lab work and admin c ...[Read More]

Can limestone digestion by volcanoes contribute to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels?

October 28, 2019
Can limestone digestion by volcanoes contribute to higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels?
Degassing at Merapi volcano, Indonesia. Source: GFZ.

By Frances Deegan and Ralf Halama Carbon – the element on everyone’s lips. Carbon is unquestionably one of the most important elements on Earth – terrestrial life is carbon-based and so are many of our energy sources. From the perspective of a human time-scale, biological and anthropogenic (caused by human activity) carbon fluxes are very important (e.g. through industrial activity and burni ...[Read More]

Fire, Fog, Frost, Famine – French Revolution? The Lakagígar eruption in Iceland, 1783-1784 [Part 1]

May 9, 2018
Fire, Fog, Frost, Famine – French Revolution? The Lakagígar eruption in Iceland, 1783-1784 [Part 1]
The southwestern part of the Lakagígar fissure, seen from the mountain Laki. The flat land to the left of the crater row is covered by rough ‘a’a-lava. The black stretches to the right are covered by tephra (solidified lava fragments) which was probably formed by violent interaction between rising magma and ground water. Photo credit: Claudia Wieners

“On the 8th of June 1783, at Whitsun, there gushed forth from the mountains behind the summer pastures a fire which devastated land, cattle and humans with its effects, both nearby and far away”, wrote Reverend Jón Steingrímsson of Kirkjubæjarklaustur in his autobiography [2]. The “fire” which welled up from a volcanic fissure now known as Lakagígar (the craters of Mount Laki) was the biggest floo ...[Read More]