Featured
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Where I Work |
Acid test: why the chemistry of this unique crater lake matters
Hanik Humaida monitors the activity of Indonesia’s volcanoes to help protect the public.
- James Mitchell Crow
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News & Views |
The biologist who built a Faraday cage for a crab
What every biologist should know about electronics, plus a disturbing outbreak of volcanism in North Carolina, in the weekly dip into Nature’s archive.
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Research Highlight |
Submerged volcano’s eruption was the biggest since the last ice age
Some 7,300 years ago, the Kikai volcano in Japan produced up to 457 cubic kilometres of ash and other debris.
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News Feature |
Santorini’s volcanic past: underwater clues reveal giant prehistoric eruption
An expedition that drilled into the sea floor near the famous Greek island found signs of a gargantuan blast 520,000 years ago and more recent eruptions.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
In pictures: lava flows into Icelandic town during volcanic eruption
The latest outburst sent molten rock into the port town of Grindavík, igniting homes.
- Alexandra Witze
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News |
Iceland braces for volcanic eruption: what scientists are watching
Researchers are tracking every aspect of the geological unrest, which began last month.
- Alexandra Witze
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Where I Work |
‘Ash was falling like rain’: how I became a volcanologist
Richard Robertson monitors seismic activity across the Lesser Antilles islands in the Caribbean.
- Nicola Jones
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News |
AI reads text from ancient Herculaneum scroll for the first time
Machine-learning technique reveals Greek words in CT scans of rolled-up papyrus.
- Jo Marchant
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Career Feature |
Research at the intersection of ‘human rage and nature’s fury’
Geochemist Charles Balagizi monitors water safety and volcanic activity in a region where violence is common. The deaths of colleagues means he never assumes an area is safe.
- Shihab Jamal
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Article
| Open Access
Rift-induced disruption of cratonic keels drives kimberlite volcanism
Most kimberlites erupting in the past billion years on Earth did so about 30 million years after continental breakup, with dynamical and analytical models suggesting a control from rifting-related mantle delamination.
- Thomas M. Gernon
- , Stephen M. Jones
- & Anne Glerum
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Article |
Remote detection of a lunar granitic batholith at Compton–Belkovich
Measurements from the Chang’e-1 and Chang’e-2 microwave instruments reveal an anomalously hot geothermal source on the Moon that is best explained by a roughly 50-kilometre-diameter granitic system below the geological feature known as Compton–Belkovich.
- Matthew A. Siegler
- , Jianqing Feng
- & Mackenzie N. White
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News |
Hawaii volcano Kīlauea creates fiery landscape of lava
One of the most closely monitored volcanoes in the world has burst into life again.
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News |
New Zealand volcano: science agency pleads guilty to risk-assessment charge
The charge relates to how GNS Science communicated volcanic risk to contractors in the years before the Whakaari White Island eruption in 2019.
- Dyani Lewis
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News |
Tonga volcano eruption triggered ‘mega-tsunami’
Detailed analysis of the January 2022 event shows how underwater blasts generated huge waves that battered coastlines throughout the island nation.
- Gemma Conroy
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News & Views Forum |
The medieval Moon unveils volcanic secrets
Innovative use of medieval musings about the Moon has revealed that volcanic eruptions coincided with abrupt, global-scale cooling events. The approach is exciting from the perspective of climate scientists and historians alike.
- Andrea Seim
- , Eduardo Zorita
- & Anne Lawrence-Mathers
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News |
Medieval accounts of eclipses shine light on massive volcanic eruptions
Descriptions of lunar eclipses by monks and other scholars help scientists to pinpoint effects of ancient eruptions.
- Jeff Tollefson
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News |
Volcanoes on Venus? ‘Striking’ finding hints at modern-day activity
Discovery highlights need for future missions after NASA puts one on hold.
- Myriam Vidal Valero
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Research Highlight |
Underwater volcano near Greece is a sleeping menace
Magma chamber is discovered beneath Kolumbo volcano, near the Greek island of Santorini.
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Research Highlight |
Molten rock lurks not far below Yellowstone tourists’ feet
The magma chamber of an enormous volcano lies closer to Earth’s surface than previously estimated.
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News & Views |
Glaciers sparked volcanism that harmed ocean health
Sediment records from Alaska, spanning the past 20,000 years, suggest that melting glaciers triggered volcanic episodes that removed oxygen in the northeastern Pacific Ocean, explaining ‘dead zones’ that lasted millennia.
- Weiqi Yao
- & Ulrich G. Wortmann
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News Round-Up |
Volcano charges, Omicron boosters and wandering elephants
The latest science news, in brief.
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News |
Charge dropped against New Zealand science agency after deadly volcano eruption
The charge related to how GNS Science communicated volcanic risk to the public in the lead-up to the 2019 eruption on Whakaari White Island.
- Dyani Lewis
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Research Briefing |
A glimpse into the deepest parts of the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system
After around 780 years without volcanic activity, Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula sprang to life in 2021, when magma breached the surface at the Fagradalsfjall volcano. Observed changes in the lava composition have provided an unprecedented record of the supply and mixing mechanics of deep magma at the base of the crust.
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Article
| Open Access
Deformation and seismicity decline before the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption
As observed for the 2021 Fagradalsfjall eruption in Iceland, a release of tectonic stress followed by a decline in deformation and seismicity rate may be a characteristic precursory activity for a certain class of eruptions.
- Freysteinn Sigmundsson
- , Michelle Parks
- & Thorbjörg Ágústsdóttir
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Article
| Open Access
Rapid shifting of a deep magmatic source at Fagradalsfjall volcano, Iceland
Primitive lavas of the Fagradalsfjall eruption present a window into the deep roots of a magmatic system previously inaccessible to near-real-time investigation, showing that eruptible batches of basaltic magma mix on a timescale of weeks.
- Sæmundur A. Halldórsson
- , Edward W. Marshall
- & Andri Stefánsson
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News & Views |
The search for eruption signals in volcanic noise
A volcano that erupted with few precursory signals offers a test bed for seeking out ways of forecasting disaster — and a reminder that analysis on a global scale is necessary for a comprehensive understanding of volcanoes.
- Emily K. Montgomery-Brown
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Article
| Open Access
Precursor-free eruption triggered by edifice rupture at Nyiragongo volcano
The 2021 eruption of Mount Nyiragongo, DR Congo demonstrated that magma storage close to the surface in open systems means that eruptions may occur with very short-term precursory activity, raising major challenges for their monitoring.
- D. Smittarello
- , B. Smets
- & A. Syavulisembo Muhindo
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Comment |
Huge volcanic eruptions: time to prepare
More must be done to forecast and try to manage globally disruptive volcanic eruptions. The risks are greater than people think.
- Michael Cassidy
- & Lara Mani
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News & Views |
Atmospheric waves reinforced tsunami after Tongan eruption
The global tsunami and atmospheric waves that followed the eruption of the Tongan volcano Hunga Tonga–Hunga Ha’apai were observed around the world. Analysing the data could reshape our understanding of such events.
- Emily M. Lane
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Article |
Timescales for pluton growth, magma-chamber formation and super-eruptions
Analysis of inherited zircons and sanidines from Miocene ignimbrites in the Central Andes shows that plutons were emplaced for up to 4 million years prior to onset of volcanism and that disruption of plutonic rock occurs a few decades or less just before or during super-eruptions.
- M. E. van Zalinge
- , D. F. Mark
- & A. Rust
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Research Highlight |
Volcano lurking under Pacific’s surface has an explosive past
A distinctive rock layer on two Japanese islands is traced to an underwater volcano’s violent eruption some 13,500 years ago.
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Where I Work |
Plumbing the depths of Costa Rica’s volcanoes
Volcanologist Maarten de Moor helps to warn local people of looming eruptions.
- Jack Leeming
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News & Views |
From the archive: the link between mosquitoes and disease, and Mount Vesuvius erupts
Snippets from Nature’s past.
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News & Views |
Mobile mantle could explain volcanic hotspot locations
Ancient records of Earth’s magnetic field seem to contradict a conceptual picture of how regions of volcanic activity form. Statistical modelling now reconciles these data with our understanding of mantle fluid dynamics.
- Allen K. McNamara
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Article |
Assembly of the basal mantle structure beneath Africa
Reconstruction of one billion years of mantle flow shows that mobile basal mantle structures are just as consistent with the Earth’s volcanic history as are fixed mantle structures.
- Nicolas Flament
- , Ömer F. Bodur
- & Andrew S. Merdith
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Research Briefing |
Imaging Yellowstone’s plumbing system from the sky
Despite decades of research, the plumbing system that links deep thermal fluids to the well-known surface features of Yellowstone National Park remains mostly unexplored. The first views of this system are revealed through the gathering of airborne geophysical data, which are used to generate electrical resistivity and magnetic susceptibility models.
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Article |
Geophysical imaging of the Yellowstone hydrothermal plumbing system
High-resolution images derived from airborne geophysical data reveal critical aspects of the Yellowstone hydrothermal system, which can be used to assess geochemical models of the evolution of thermal fluids worldwide.
- Carol A. Finn
- , Paul A. Bedrosian
- & Jade Crosbie
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Nature Podcast |
Tongan volcano eruption leaves scientists with unanswered questions
Scientists scramble to understand the devastating Tongan volcano eruption, and modelling how societal changes might alter carbon emissions.
- Benjamin Thompson
- & Nick Petrić Howe
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News Feature |
Why the Tongan eruption will go down in the history of volcanology
The 15 January blast sent shock waves around the globe and defied scientific expectations. Researchers are now scrambling to work out why.
- Alexandra Witze
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Matters Arising |
Reply to: Rainfall an unlikely factor in Kīlauea’s 2018 rift eruption
- Jamie I. Farquharson
- & Falk Amelung
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Matters Arising |
Rainfall an unlikely factor in Kīlauea’s 2018 rift eruption
- Michael P. Poland
- , Shaul Hurwitz
- & Christina A. Neal
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Research Highlight |
Vesuvius is off the hook for ancient Arctic ashfall
Volcanic debris in a Greenland ice-core layer probably came from an Alaskan volcano instead.
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News |
Tonga volcano eruption created puzzling ripples in Earth’s atmosphere
Powerful waves ringing through the atmosphere after the eruption of Hunga Tonga–Hunga Haʻapai are unlike anything seen before.
- David Adam
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Article
| Open Access
Age of the oldest known Homo sapiens from eastern Africa
Geochemical analyses correlating the stratum that overlies the sediments containing the Omo fossils with material from a volcanic eruption suggest that these fossils (the oldest known modern human fossils in eastern Africa) are over 200,000 years old.
- Céline M. Vidal
- , Christine S. Lane
- & Clive Oppenheimer
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Research Highlight |
The tricky ‘hotspot’ volcanoes that belie the name
Seismic waves reveal unexpectedly cool temperatures for certain volcanoes classified as hot.
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News Feature |
How dangerous is Africa’s explosive Lake Kivu?
An unusual lake in central Africa could one day release a vast cloud of greenhouse gases that suffocates millions of people. But it’s not clear whether the threat is getting worse.
- Nicola Jones
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Research Highlight |
Volcano that built an island paradise is attuned to the sea
Eruptions of Santorini volcano, which created the Greek island of the same name, are linked to drops in sea level.
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Article |
Precise date for the Laacher See eruption synchronizes the Younger Dryas
A revised date for the Laacher See eruption using measurements of subfossil trees shifts the chronology of European varved lakes relative to the Greenland ice core record, synchronizing the onset of the Younger Dryas across the North Atlantic–European sector.
- Frederick Reinig
- , Lukas Wacker
- & Ulf Büntgen
How volcanoes shaped our planet — and why we need to be ready for the next big eruption
Tonga’s huge blast and Omicron spread