EARTH Magazine: Kilauea eruptions could shift from mild to wild

Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano is famously effusive: Low-viscosity lava has been oozing out of the main caldera and two active rift zones along the southern shore of the Big Island since 1983. But scientists suspect that Kilauea’s eruptions haven’t always been so mild. In the past 2,500 years, at least two cycles of explosive eruptions lasting several centuries each have rocked the island. The switch from effusive to explosive is likely to occur again, scientists say, but probably not anytime soon.

Volcano Basics

Why do volcanoes matter?

As populations expand, more people, property, and airline routes are exposed to volcanic hazards. Volcanoes in the United States principally affect the West Coast states, Hawaii, and Alaska, but ash from eruptions can travel hundreds of miles, grounding flights and hindering ground transportation. The last major eruption in the lower United States occurred at Mount St. Helens in Washington in 1980, killing 57 people and causing nearly $1 billion in losses to forestry, agriculture, buildings, and roads.^[1,2,3]

EARTH Magazine: Santiaguito Volcano's Clockwork Behavior Provides an Exceptional Laboratory

If Earth breathes, Santiaguito Volcano in the Western Highlands of Guatemala could be its mouth. Roughly every half hour, like volcanic clockwork, Santiaguito’s active Caliente lava dome expands, filling with gas from depressurizing magma below. Then it exhales, often explosively, and deflates. Over the course of a day, you could almost keep time by it.

#TBT - September 1983 Geotimes

The September 1983 issue of Geotimes (now EARTH Magazine) featured a cover with an image celebrating when the Smithsonian Institution put its collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale on display for the first time at the National Museum of Natural History. The caption reads as follows: "This year for the first time, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of Natural History has put on display specimens from its unequaled collection of fossils from the Burgess Shale (British Columbia). At the entrance to Dinosaur Hall, a diorama, shown in part of the cover of this issue, recreates the muddy bottom where those creatures lived at the base of an algal reef. A clutch of arthropods (Canadaspis perfecta) crawls up the slope on the right where mud has slumped from the terrace, the fatal weakness that will bury—and preserve—an entire population of Middle Cambrian shallow marine fauna. Sponges cling to the reef face. (photo by Chip Clark, the Smithsonian Institution)"

EARTH Magazine: Living in the Shadow of Mauna Loa: A Silent Summit Belies a Volcano's Forgotten Fury

Earth’s largest active volcano, Mauna Loa on Hawaii’s Big Island, is taking a nap. And after 30 years, no one is sure when the sleeping giant will awaken. Scientists say it’s likely to erupt again within the next couple of decades and, when it does, it will be spectacular — and potentially dangerous.

Earth's Dynamic Geosphere: Plate Tectonics Activity 3 - What Drives the Plates?

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students to calculate the density of liquids and compare their densities with their position in a column of liquid; observe the effects of temperature on the density of a material; examine the natural heat flow from within the Earth; understand the results of uneven heating within the Earth; and understand the causes of the movement of lithospheric plates.

Earth's Dynamic Geosphere: Plate Tectonics Activity 2 - Plate Boundaries and Interactions

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students classify and label the types of movement at plate boundaries, using a world map that shows relative plate motion; identify the distribution of plates by means of the world map of relative plate motions; describe the present plate-tectonic setting of your community and infer possible past plate-tectonic activity based on your knowledge.

Earth's Dynamic Geosphere: Plate Tectonics Activity 1 - Taking a Ride on a Lithospheric Plate

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students determine the direction and rate of the movement of positions within the plate on which your community is located, using data from GPS and a computer model; predict the position of your community in the near future, and "retrodict" its position in the recent past, by extrapolating from data already collected; recognize that the rate and direction of plate motion is not necessarily constant; describe several lines of evidence for plate motion.

Earth's Dynamic Geosphere: Volcanoes Activity 7 - Monitoring Active Volcanoes

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students understand some of the changes that occur prior to volcanic eruptions; describe volcanic monitoring systems; and design and build an instrument to monitor changes which occur prior to volcanic eruptions.

Earth's Dynamic Geosphere: Volcanoes Activity 6 - Volcanic History of Your Community

Here you will find resources to help educators and their students demonstrate awareness of the knowledge used to construct geologic maps, examine and identify several common igneous rocks, identify the distribution of active volcanoes on one map and rock types on a given geologic map, recognize that volcanic rocks indicate a history of volcanic activity.

American Geosciences Institute

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