America came late. Humanity had come from Africa, and spread out over Eurasia. This happened mainly during the ice age, when lower sea levels allowed walking migration where previously a ...

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 ...

Like other natural disasters, volcanic eruptions can have an impact on civilizations. Of course they can annihilate them, but they can also contribute to their economic development by providing a ...

It seemed to come out of nowhere. In the midst of a quiet interlude, after the hugely damaging La Palma had ended, when the hugely touristic eruption at Fagradalsfjall failed to re-appear, and the ...

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 ...

Heimaey is famous. It is the only place in Iceland known to have first been settled by non-Vikings: the first inhabitants were escaped Irish slaves, before 900 AD, who didn’t last long. Much later it ...

Mid-oceanic rifts should be in the middle of the ocean they formed. And often they are, but there are exceptions. The Reykjanes Rift, south of Iceland, is one of these. It is well known for its ...

The lava flow running east is the one produced in January-March. The blacker ash covers around 20km>sup>2 in this image. That suggests a volume of 0.01 to 0.001 km 3: no more than a VEI 2. The convent ...

In my last article I wrote about the Turkana, volcanism that is part of the Great African Rift. But unbeknownst to most this is just one of several rift systems in Africa that are tearing the ...

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 ...

Lava flows come in all sizes. The Reykjanes eruption produced flows of several kilometers length. Other volcanoes can do ten times that length, although we do not have a lot of recent experience with ...

Seeing a hill rise up in front of your eyes where there was a lake just weeks before, and seeing it happen close to a major city, that would be something. Perhaps the Neapolitans could have stayed ...