9 Active Volcanoes People Still Live Near

Learn which communities sit in the path of volcanic eruptions

By Brynn Mannino

from WomansDay.com

Civilizations developed on the flanks of volcanoes for the same reason an estimated 500 million people continue to live on them today: mineral-rich soil, geothermal energy, tourism opportunities and natural beauty. Following the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland, and the 30th anniversary of the eruption of Mount St. Helens, we started wondering which volcanoes pose the biggest threat to people. Here’s what we came up with.

Mount Vesuvius in Naples, Italy

Last known eruption: 1944

Mount Vesuvius, which overlooks the Bay of Naples, is the only volcano in mainland Europe to have erupted within the last century—and, due to its dense surrounding population of approximately 3 million people, is regarded as one of the most dangerous in the world. Alas, the volcanic soil surrounding the roaring volcano is too rich to let go to waste and the tourism opportunities too plentiful, because the government can’t get many of the nearby residents to accept $30,000 per family to move to a safer location. Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

Kilauea in Kalapana, Hawaii

Last known eruption: 1983

Kilauea, which overlaps the eastern flank of the massive Mauna Loa shield volcano, has been Hawaii’s most active volcano in recent years. Kalapana was once considered one of the most beautiful Hawaiian regions. But in 1983, a long-term eruption began that has produced lava flows, destroyed nearly 200 homes and added new coastline to the island. In recent years, however, the population of 2,421 people has grown 11.7 percent as people slowly return to the beautiful black sand beaches. Photo courtesy of rjones0856 via Flickr.com.

Suribachi in Iwo Jima, Japan

Last known eruption: 2001

The rock on which the famous battle occurred is home to four hundred Japanese Self-Defense Force staffers who manage air-traffic control, fueling, rescue airbase and explosive-ordnance disposal, but otherwise the island has been uninhabited since the end of the U.S. occupation in 1968. Civilians are only permitted on the island for memorial services, as construction workers for the naval air base or as meteorological agency officials. Photo courtesy of Wikipedia.org.

Merapi in Java, Indonesia

Last known eruption: 2007

Home to a population of approximately 130 million, Java is the most populated island in the world. It’s also host to 45 volcanoes (excluding 20 small craters) including Merapi, the most feared in the country. In Indonesia, however, the best and most lucrative rice crops—a main source of income—are obtained from the rich soils located close to the volcanoes, which keeps the farming population close by. Photos by Philippe Bourseiller / Getty Images.

Popocatépetl in Puebla, Mexico

Last known eruption: 2010

"Popocatépetl," the Aztec word for “smoking Mountain,” has had over 20 major eruptions in recent history. In the time of the Aztecs, the closer the maize grew to the mountain, the earlier it ripened and the better it tasted due to the rich soil and geothermal climate. Now, more than 2 million people live in Puebla, which is just 25 miles west of Mexico City. Officials warn residents to stay at least four miles from the crater after five hikers were found dead in 1995, possibly due to volcanic gases. Locals stick around, however, due to the city’s lucrative tourism opportunities and rich soil. Photo by Bruno Perousse / Getty.

Galeras in Pasto, Colombia

Last known eruption: 2010

Pasto, which boasts a population of more than 300,000 inhabitants, is located at the foot of the Galeras volcano, currently the most active volcano in Colombia (it has been in a state of eruption for over 20 years). A majority of the 8,000 people (mostly farmers) living close to it tend to ignore the frequent evacuation alerts. The fact that the volcano erupted unexpectedly in 1993, unleashing a deadly blow that killed nine people, doesn’t scare civilians away, as the volcanic soil serves them all too well—the region specializes in the production of dairy products. Photo by AFP/Getty Images.

Stromboli in Stromboli, Italy

Last known eruption: 2010

Stromboli volcano, a.k.a. “the lighthouse of the Mediterranean” is one of two active volcanoes on the Aeolian Islands—a volcanic archipelago in the Tyrrhenian Sea north of Sicily, Italy. Stromboli and its always smoke-spewing volcanic cone has become a native- and tourist-loved epicenter, thanks to the city’s untouched eastern side, which is lined with whitewashed houses, narrow streets and beautiful black-sand beaches. The population, though only a few hundred people during winter, swells to several thousand in the summer. Photo by Getty Images.

Etna in Sicily, Italy

Last known eruption: 2010

Europe’s largest volcano, Etna, serves as a backdrop for the city of Catania, and is in a constant state of contained eruption. Lava moves slowly down the mountain, giving those nearby a chance to escape, which is how the volcano got the nickname “friendly giant.” In the event of a large explosion, though, many locals living nearby would probably have to relocate. But residents take the risk, as the mineral-rich soil is perfect for cultivating vineyards, olive groves, citrus plantations and orchards. Photo by De Agostini/Getty Images.

Eyjafjallajökull in Reykjavik, Iceland

Last eruption: 2010

The most recent volcanic eruption began in March 2010, turning destructive in April with melt-water floods, the evacuation of nearly 800 people (many who were farmers) and the most extensive air travel disruption in Northern Europe since World War II. As of today, there is no sign of the eruption ceasing—which is no problem for nearby tourist agencies. According to the BBC, the 25 active Icelandic volcanoes have long been the center of Iceland’s tourism, drawing crowds from across the globe. Photos by Arctic-Images /Getty Images.

The Deadliest place on Earth? Surviving Cueva de los Cristales - The Giant Crystal Cave

By Paul Williams
From: http://www.ironammonite.com/

Summary: Filming in the Giant Crystal Cave for 'How Earth Made Us'. One of the deadliest places on the planet.

It's 50oC and has a humidity of 100%, less than a hundred people have been inside and it's so deadly that even with respirators and suits of ice you can only survive for 20 minutes before your body starts to fail. It’s the nearest thing to visiting another planet – it’s going deep inside our own.

For 'How Earth made us' I have been lucky enough to film everywhere from tiny Pacific islands to the centre of the Sahara desert, yet nowhere could prepare me for filming in The Giant Crystal Cave - Cueva de los Cristales of Mexico.

Probably the most incredible photograph of the cave ever taken. Photograph by Carsten Peter/Speleoresearch & Films.

Highway to Hell

My director, Nigel Walk and I, arrived in the quiet town of Naica as the morning sun painted the Chihuuahua desert a golden hue - it was a serene moment of calm that wasn't to last long. Within minutes we were inside the mine complex tumbling and bumping our way downwards, deep into a subterranean world. The air became dusty, thick and heavy, my skin tingled as sweat exuded from every pore – deeper and deeper we went. If you were a miner in these unforgivable tunnels you might refer to this road as the highway to hell, but for the few outsiders who have made the journey it's a right of passage to see one of the world’s most magnificent natural treasures.

1000 feet down, we arrived at the control room where conditions were already an exhausting 45oC and 55% humidity. Here we were greeted by Gonzalo Infante of Speleoresearch & Films, a larger than life character whose contagious passion for this inhospitable place had allowed us to come this far. For more than five years he has tirelessly worked to share the wonders of Naica with the world and to preserve them for future generations. It is his experience, and a 15 man team, that would keep us alive as we filmed this geological wonder.

The control room. An exhausted team member gets assessed in the medical area.

‘You think this is hot’ said Gonzalo gesturing towards a vaulted iron door ‘This is just a cool breeze compared to what you’ll feel like in there’… ‘ready to go?’ At this point I had expected to be stepping into an oversized bright orange ice-suit and putting on a huge respirator backpack. Everyone else seemed to be dressed like characters from The Ghostbusters, but Gonzalo insisted that our first visit should be a completely raw experience allowing us to physically and mentally prepare, just in case, for whatever reason, we should end up spending much longer inside than we had anticipated …anxiously we heaved open the door and entered.

Entering the Chasm

Nigel and I intrepidly stepped forwards – to say that the heat hit us like a wall would be an understatement, my glasses steamed up and their metal frames almost burnt me - I had to leave them at the entrance. A slightly fuzzy view however did not perturb my sense of awe. I was dumbstruck. A torrent of sweat streamed from my head, my energy was being sucked away, and my breathing became heavy. The view was enthralling, my eyes led me forwards but my body wanted to retreat. I was dwarfed by a forest of giant gypsum crystals, some up to 12 metres long - the largest crystals ever discovered, some estimated to weigh as much as 55 tonnes. It was something that had to be seen to be believed and I was doing just that... however within just five minutes I had gone from a reasonably fit 30 year old to an asthmatic 60 year old – it is the antithesis to the elixir of life!

Wearing the ice suite and cool air ventilator. Feeling exhausted after 20mins in the cave.

As the air became more oppressive I only hoped that I would last to tell the tale... could we do this place justice and film the ‘crown jewel’ of our series in just two days? Professor Iain Stewart, our presenter, was arriving tomorrow and as a fellow geologist I couldn’t wait to hear what he thought. This was going to be the most challenging shoot of my life.

Aborted Relics

Cueva de los Cristales is the incarnation of our most awesome science fiction imaginations - Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth, Superman's Fortress of Solitude. At about the same time as humans first ventured out of Africa, these crystals began to slowly grow. For half a million years they remained protected and nurtured by a womb of hot hydrothermal fluids rich with minerals.

Undisturbed, one can only guess how big they may have eventually grown. Yet when mining began here over a hundred years ago, the water table was lowered and the cave drained. The crystals seemingly interminable development was frozen forever leaving them as aborted relics of the deep earth. It wasn't until 2001 that miners, searching for lead, eventually penetrated the cave wall and brought it to light. The very act of discovering and witnessing them has triggered their slow decay and now no one knows what their fate will be. Once the mine ceases to operate it could be flooded by polluted mine water and abandoned forever, and that's if ambitious mineral sellers don't get to them first and rip them out to sell around the world – a plight of other smaller crystal caves in the area. My hope is that Gonzalo will prevail in his mission to secure funding and to preserve this site as a world heritage monument. To me they are a testament to the hidden forces of the planet, forces which operate on scales far beyond our own.

Who knows what other wonders lie hidden deep inside the earth.

This is me and one of Gonzalo's team right in the heart of the cave. The furthest and most difficult part to reach is just behind me - it takes 10 minutes just to get there.

Trying to scramble over the jagged crystals whilst wearing an oversized jump suit stuffed with ice, and a large backpack, is no easy feat - especially when carrying a large professional camera. Photograph by Carsten Peter/Speleoresearch & Films

It's such as task to get into the cave that by the time we were in position to film a shot the doctor was calling for us to get back out. Photograph by Carsten Peter/Speleoresearch & Films

Read more about the Crystal Cave and view more images in this special article by National Geographic.

How Earth Made Us will be airing on BBC2 (UK) and National Geographic (USA) early in 2010.

Posted by Paul Williams

Scientists Drill a Mile Into Active Deep Sea Fault Zone

By Hadley Leggett

In the first deep sea drilling expedition designed to gather seismic data, scientists have successfully drilled nearly a mile beneath the ocean floor into one of the world’s most active earthquake zones.

Researchers aboard the drilling vessel Chikyu — meaning “planet Earth” in Japanese — used a special technology called riser drilling to penetrate the upper portion of the Nankai Trough, an earthquake zone located about 36 miles southeast of Japan. By collecting rock samples and installing long-term monitoring devices, the geologists hope to understand how stress builds up in subduction zones like Nankai, where the Philippine Sea plate plate is sliding beneath the island of Japan.

Riser drilling involves encasing a deep sea drill in a giant metal tube, called a riser, that extends from the ship down to the drilling site, effectively bolting the ship to the sea floor. The researchers circulate lightly pressurized mud down through the drilling tube and back up through the riser.

“One of the key benefits is the pressurized mud keeps the wall rock from collapsing on the drilling pipe, which allows you to drill deeper and with better control,” geologist Timothy Byrne of the University of Connecticut wrote in an e-mail. “For example, nearly perfectly vertical holes or steeply inclined holes can be drilled,” wrote Byrne, who co-led the project.

Using a riser also makes it easier to send core samples and cuttings, or small chips of rock collected during drilling, back up to the surface.

The Nankai Trough last ruptured twice in 1944 and 1946, generating earthquakes greater than magnitude 8 that shook the region and caused deadly tsunamis. Since then, the two plates have continued to move, but the boundary between them has been locked, causing pressure to build.

“We know that a locked fault is not a quiet thing, but we don’t quite understand why,” said geologist Kelin Wang of the Geological Survey of Canada, who was not involved in the research. “When we understand what is meant by locking, we can understand how energy is building up for the next event.”

The Nankai project is part of an international effort called the Integrated Ocean Drilling Program, designed to investigate a variety of scientific questions through drilling. The IODP chose to drill for seismic data in Nankai because of the region’s history of recent earthquakes and the accessible location of the rupture zone. The drilling is not powerful enough to trigger an earthquake.

What is learned in Japan will help scientists understand other earthquake-prone plate boundaries, such as the Cascadia subduction zone, which extends along the Pacific coast from British Columbia to Northern California

“For us in North America, the good news is that the Nankai subduction zone is strikingly similar to ours,” Wang said. Both zones are hotter and accumulate more sediment than average. “By studying Nankai, we North Americans can actually benefit pretty directly from the project. It’s almost as if we are drilling our own subduction zone, because we’ll see a lot of the same things.”

The first drilling and sampling operations in Nankai began on May 12 and are expected to conclude on August 1. After the initial drilling stage, scientists lowered various gauges and logging instruments into the hole to measure temperature, stress, water pressure and rock permeability. Once they gather enough data, the scientists will prepare the hole for future installation of long-term monitoring equipment.

The Swirls and Waves of Antelope Canyon

Photo: X Ceccaldi

Gaze for too long at these rock formations, and you begin to drift off and forget whether you’re looking at a geological phenomenon or a vast, abstract oil painting. The swirls seem to envelop you, and in Antelope Canyon they actually do. Let’s take a ramble down this most gorgeous of gorges and lose ourselves in the wonderful play of light and patterns that captivate its many visitors each year. Here lies one of the planet’s greatest natural art galleries.

Upper Antelope Canyon

Photo: Lucas Löffler

Antelope Canyon lies on Navajo land in the American southwest, nestled hidden in the Arizona landscape. One of the world’s true natural wonders, it is a place of splendid serenity, the sort of spot where people find themselves talking in hushed whispers without quite knowing why. As a slot canyon, it has been formed over thousands of years by the gradual wear of water rushing through rock.

Lower Antelope Canyon

Photo: X Ceccaldi

Slot canyons are exceptionally narrow, far deeper than they are wide, and Antelope Canyon’s fantastic whorls and contours can be up to 150 feet tall, while being observable only by very small groups shuffling along the sandy floor. The canyon was formed by the erosion of Navajo sandstone, chiefly due to flash floods that still occur here, making this very much artwork still in progress.

Photo: Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it

Rainwater, particularly in the monsoon season, runs into a large basin overlooking the slot canyon, picking up speed and sand as it runs into the narrow passageways. Grain by grain, the corridors are deepened and the edges smoothed to form the exquisite shapes and graceful curves in the rock. Wind too has played a part in eroding and sanding this majestic canyon.

Photo: X Ceccaldi

The geological rock sculpting here is split into two distinct areas. The Navajo people fittingly call Upper Antelope Canyon Tse’ bighanilini, which means “the place where water runs through rocks”. Lower Antelope Canyon, known to the Navajo as Hasdestwazi, or “spiral rock arches”, is less visited, as it is a longer and tougher hike and must be climbed into via metal stairways.

Photo by Moondigger

Here we see the view from inside Lower Antelope Canyon, looking out with a chink of the sky visible at the top of the frame. The characteristic layering of sandstone is clearly discernible, the layers of sand having built up as a result of sedimentation from water, or from air as in deserts. Scientific explanation assuredly has its place here, and yet these visual delights fit easily into the domain of art.

Photo: Moondigger

The magical gateway into Upper Antelope Canyon – indeed its entire length – is at ground level, which is one reason why it is the more visited of the two carved geological marvels. The other features that explain its greater popularity are the occasional shafts of sunlight that shine down through openings in the top of the canyon; these are more common in the Upper Canyon.

Photo: Raimund Marx

The beams of light are typically seen in the summer months because the sun has to be high in the sky for the angle of its rays to be just right. The phenomenon does not happen so often in the winter, and during this season the colours are slightly more muted, though no less magnificent, as in the photo shown below.

Photo: gerocoT

The summer months themselves offer two different types of lighting, according to the time at which they are witnessed. The play of light is a dazzling phenomenon, seen below catching and reflecting off the edges of the canyon. The way the light constantly changes seems to emulate the continual evolution of the rock faces.

Photo: Rob Inh00d

Sometimes the pillars of light from overhead appear to evoke some kind of spiritual episode, like the stereotypical scene of a god speaking from on high. It comes as little surprise that to the Navajo people, the canyon has always been a place of reverence.

Photo: mandj98

There is a strong sense that this is some kind of sacred space, a womb-like sanctum perhaps, and to the older Navajos entering such a place would surely have been like entering a cathedral. They would likely have left feeling enlightened by nature and in harmony with something greater than themselves. Being inside Antelope Canyon will always be something of a spiritual or transformative experience.

Photo: meckimac

At times the rock forms seem to bear a resemblance to human or animal bodies in their shape and appearance, making the canyon all the more like a living, breathing entity. Here faces seem to come out of the wall, looking down quietly yet imposingly on those below.

Photo: StephanB

Antelope Canyon really is a photographer’s dream; however it also presents difficult challenges due to the way the light enters the area, the large differences in light levels, and the wide exposure range caused by light reflecting off the steep canyon walls.

Photo: yep yep

As mentioned, it is not just the light but the stratification of sandstone that makes Antelope Canyon such an enchanting experience for spectators. It really does call to mind the idea of an immense painter, working with light and rock instead of with oils. Each rock surface is a canvas for nature’s very own swirling compositions.

Photo: Luca Galuzzi - www.galuzzi.it

Yet despite the beauty and light of Antelope Canyon, this place also has darker, more dangerous aspect. This was all too apparent in 1997 when eleven tourists were killed in Lower Antelope Canyon by a flash flood that also washed away the then wooden ladders that may have provided a means of escape.

Photo: Leto A.

In the fatal 1997 event, the rain did not need to fall close to the canyon itself for the floods to come rushing down through its corridors. To trigger a flash flood here, all it needs is for a storm to deposit large quantities of water in the canyon basin, miles upstream.

Photo: Gerd Müller

The risk of sudden flooding is one reason why Antelope Canyon can only be visited through guided tours led by authorised guides. The canyon is also only accessible with a permit, and is a source of tourism trade for the Navajo on whose homeland it stands.

Photo: bass nroll

In the shot below, we see just how narrow the passages can get, particularly in the V-shaped Lower Canyon, which can be tricky underfoot at times. Sightseers can stretch out their arms and touch both sides in places. However amazing it may be, Antelope Canyon is not for the claustrophobic.

Photo: Moondigger

So we reach the end of our own tour through this wondrous temple of Mother Nature’s. Part natural phenomenon, part tranquil art gallery, part giant artwork in itself, Antelope Canyon will undoubtedly continue to leave visitors both speechless and restored, as it has done for thousands of years.

Photo: rickz

Sources: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6

This post was written by:

Karl Fabricius - who has written 71 posts on Environmental Graffiti.

Karl was raised in Wales and currently lives in Bristol, though his family tree branches to both sides of the Atlantic. Besides holding an English MA, he’s made a documentary on grassroots boxing, played drums in punk rock bands, and traveled some lush parts of the globe. Back from copywriting in Dubai’s desert, he’s thirsty to get scribbling about things worth scribbling about – especially the environment

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