Geochemistry, Mineralogy, Petrology & Volcanology

Tambora 1815: From eruptive dynamics to the global impact of the eruption – with Jessica Kandlbauer

Alessandro Musu December 8, 2022

Panorama Mount Tambora caldera

reading time: 10 minutes The Tambora 1815 eruption: a brief introduction On April 10th, 1815, the Tambora volcano, located on the island of Sumbawa in Indonesia, was responsible for one of the largest eruptions in the last millennium (Stothers, 1984; Sigurdsson and Carey, 1989; Oppenheimer, 2003; Self et al., 2004; Kandlbauer et al., 2013a; Kandlbauer and Sparks, 2014). The eruption had a devastat ...[Read More]

Fagradalsfjall 2021 versus 2022: similarity and differences

Elisabetta Billotta October 19, 2022

Fagradalsfjall 2022. Photo by Emanuele Caruso

The Icelandic eruptions of 2021 and 2022 originated in the Reykjanes peninsula, characterized by the Krýsuvík-Trölladyngja system, one of the five volcanic systems present along the peninsula. This peninsula is a leaky transform fault, characterized by episodic rifts and associated volcanism. The last two years have brought about some of the most momentous volcanic eruptions in recent history. The ...[Read More]

Machine Learning and Volcanic Crystals: a journey with Corin Jorgenson into Random Forest Thermobarometry

Alessandro Musu September 15, 2022

Frontpage_CorinJorgenson_Thermobarometry

Thermobarometry: a bit of background Being able to understand the eruptive style of a volcano, how the eruptive behavior can evolve over time and managing to better interpret the signals that a volcanic system gives us before an eruption are of fundamental importance for mitigating the risk associated with eruptive activities. In this context, it is extremely important to understand trans-crustal ...[Read More]

5 things I learnt from 2 months at sea with the International Ocean Discovery Program

Elliot Carter July 13, 2022

Photo of sunset behind the drilling vessel JOIDES resolution

Sunset over the South Atlantic behind the research vessel JOIDES Resolution during our transit back to port

This year I was lucky enough to be part of International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 390 – South Atlantic Transect I – aboard the research vessel JOIDES Resolution which spent two months, from April to June, out in the South Atlantic, drilling into and sampling the upper oceanic crust and sediments. I sailed as a petrologist and was responsible for describing how the basa ...[Read More]