Author: Dr. Marcus Thornfield, Volcanologist and Geophysical Researcher

February 20, 1943. Dionisio Pulido was having what should have been a perfectly ordinary day in his cornfield near the village of Parícutin, Mexico.

Pompeii didn’t see it coming. Neither did the 16,000 people who died when Mount Vesuvius decided to become a geological nightmare in 79 AD. That’

Mount Fuji looks like somebody took a geometry compass and drew a perfect cone on Japan’s horizon. Mount St. Helens—before 1980, anyway—had that

Werner Herzog’s 2016 film Into the Inferno opens with a shot that makes you feel like you’re staring into Earth’s fever dream.

Life cycles are for butterflies and frogs and maybe bamboo if you’re feeling botanical. Volcanoes don’t have life cycles because they’

The water sits at exactly 28 degrees Celsius in Santorini’s caldera bay, which sounds pleasant until you remember you’re floating directly

The ocean floor is littered with thousands of flat-topped mountains that used to be volcanoes—except nobody calls them mountains anymore because they drowned

In the forests of Mount Iwaki, northern Japan, macaques have been gathering at hot springs for decades, their rust-colored fur frosted with snow as they

Mount Kilauea in Hawaii has been erupting pretty much continuously since 1983, which means it’s been spewing Earth’s guts onto the surface

In 1815, Mount Tambora in Indonesia threw what might be the worst temper tantrum in recorded history. The eruption killed roughly 71,000 people immediately