Obama's gone down in my opinion polls.

I love Barack Obama as much as the next person(more than many), this video of him buying Guinness is probably the best thing I've seen all day; Obama is cool (it's been a bad day, I almost saw a Manchester City parade). I just think it's a bit wuss of him to leave Ireland just because a volcano is erupting in Iceland, despite there only being one letter change it's not the same country, Obama is so stupid. I'm so sorry Barack, I love you, I really really do. But due to last years madness of the Eyjafjallajoekull eruption (which is interestingly your favourite volcano) every time a little volcano erupts people go mental and think they will never be able to fly anywhere again.

It was Grimsvotn that erupted and it is thought to be the most powerful eruption in Iceland in fifty years, it the fact that this eruption was so powerful that it is likely to be less disruptive than Eyja. The eruption is thought to be short and powerful meaning there will be no prolonged danger to air travel. Grimsvotn is also home to sub-glacial lakes and most of it's eruptions are thought to have been sub-glacial. The volcano has the same fissure system as Laki (Iceland's biggest volcano) and was erupting during Laki's massive 1783 eruption. Another link volcano and extraterrestrial link here- bacteria found in the sub-glacial lake are thought to be keys to life on Mars. These bacteria were the first to be found surviving in low oxygen conditions which are kept slightly heated by the volcanic warmth, as there are volcanoes and lakes on Mars (which is pretty cold) this is possibly of how life could survive there.

to be fair there was quite a lot of ash

The Volcano at Night

I found out about this, wrote a blog post about it, forgot about it, was reminded about it and watched it. Everything about it is fantastic, has some great actual volcanic facts and not just some moron talking about Cyndi Lauper and making crap paper volcanoes. Io is really cool, I really want a telescope and Sir Patrick Moore is really really cool. I won't try and write about space volcanoes as I'll just get it wrong and look like an idiot so it's probably best just to watch the programme.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b00x7bxj/The_Sky_at_Night_03_01_2011/

How do volcanoes in space greet one another?

Io (an answer to the joke and a greeting to readers of this post)

I seem to remember reading that Io (one of Jupiter's Moons) was the only other celestial body in our solar systam to have active volcanoes. My good friend Alice reminded me of this yesterday when she woke me with a text telling the next The Sky at Night episode will be about volcanoes in space. Soon after realising that I hadn't actually been stirred by the fall of another wicket, I remembered this fact about Io, Alice needs confirmation from Sir Patrick, I now think I do too and maybe Io just has the most volcanism. Whatever the case, it has some which is cool so here are some facts about it.

Io has high orbital eccentricity, which means it is an elliptical shape, this means it has large gravitational pull, resulting in large tidal heating and this causes it's volcanism. Earth's volcanoes are due to magma movement from the geothermal activity or something like that (I really hope no physicists read the blog, actually I don't think anyone really reads it, so I should definitely make more stuff up).  There are three types of eruptions that occur on Io; intra-patera eruptions, flow-dominated eruptions and explosion dominated eruptions. Intra-patera eruptions occur in pateras which are caldera-like depressions on the moons surface, these can eruptions can be divided into those that with lava flows and those with lava lakes (a pool connected to a magma reservoir). Flow dominated eruptions seem to be similar to earth's Hawaiian eruption in that they continue for long periods of time and are often from lava tubes and fissures. Like Plinian eruptions, Explosion dominated eruptions are spectacular and violent, they occur when a magma body reaches a fissure and often produce lava fountains.

Hopefully there will more on this in next weeks The Sky at Night so I will be able to fill in all those gaps in my extraterrestrial volcano knowledge and pass on some wisdom. Issue Three will be out for in time for Christmas and I'm pretty sure that everyone you know would want a copy of the magazine so get ordering.
Finally here is another blog with a volcano of the week feature- definitely a copy of mine! http://www.gishbartimes.org/2010_08_01_archive.html

Volcano of the Week #2- Olympus Mons

Olympus Mons is located on Mars and is the largest volcano (and mountain) in the solar system. It is in the Tharis region, one of Mars' two main volcanic areas, the other being Elysium. At 27km, the height of this shield volcano is astounding, Everest is 8.848km. However it is the width (550km) that is truly mind blowing, to put this into context it is the size of Arizona or if you were standing on Mars you wouldn't be able to see the summit of Olympus Mons (and not just because you'd probably be dead). The caldera (central volcanic crater) is a humongous 66 by 83km and 3km deep.




Mars unlike Earth is lacking in plate tectonics which is why it is believed that Olympus Mons has grown to such a large size. With each subsequent volcanic eruption more lava is added to this fixed hotspot. It is relatively difficult to measure the volcanism of Olympus Mons due to its extraterrestrial nature. However lava flows have been seen as recently as 2004 and due its relatively young age, it is expected that there will be more volcanic activity.

This website offers more information on Olympus Mons and has some excellent pictures.

OlympusMons.com - Your Guide to Olympus Mons - the largest volcano in our solar system.

Thanks to Vanna 'volcanoes in space' Barber for a heads up on this volcano and a happy summer solstice.

Tintin and Volcanoes

Tintin has always been a massive influence in my life (for example my best friends are a small white dog, a violent drunken sailor and an eccentric professor) and I have recently realised that this spreads to my love of volcanoes. Flight 714, the penultimate tintin book involves not only volcanoes but also aliens. I know; volcanoes, tintin and aliens is an absolute winning combination. It's probably one of the strangest adventures but I still love it.




As well the excellent Tintin series Herge also wrote the adventures of Jo, Zette and Jocko. Which I suppose is a bit like a dumbed down version of Tintin. My older brother had all the Tintin books so Jo, Zette and Jocko were my thing. The second half of The Secret Ray (eruption of karamako) was all about a volcanic eruption and some cannibals so pretty great really (also Jocko is a pet monkey)