In the Company of Volcanoes

-Alison How does it make you feel when a headline reads "molten magma beneath your feet"? It sure sounds exciting, and when it’s followed immediately by some line about disaster or cataclysm it can be quite stressful. Before we tackle the details, let’s start off with-- there is very little magma down there. Most of the Earth’s mantle is quite solid, it is hot, but not much of it is liquid. Some headlines are just click bait, or they've taken some grain of truth and stretched it until it causes that right amount of drama. We can, with a bit of detective work, weed out what real information in the news from the soap opera. The lovely glow from molten rock. This was made in my lab from remelting natural lava. One way is to first wrap our heads around the scale of things "beneath our feet". Just what do we mean when we say the Earth is hot inside? How far must we go to get to hot stuff? More importantly, how much is liquid down there? If you head to a geolog...

- Guest blog! Craig Magee Volcanic systems are complicated. Nearly as complicated, it turns out, as figuring out how to introd uce your first blogpost. I’ve finally decided on... This is me trying to be artistic with a  jaunty selfie in front of Lake Taupo Hello! I’m Craig. Usually I introduce myself as a volcanologist. It’s much easier and sounds more exciting than saying ‘I’m a structural igneous geologist’, which then requires deciphering.Unfortunately, given the expertise of the usual reporters for this most excellent blog, I cannot really pass myself off as a volcanologist. The only active volcanoes I’ve been to are on Lanzarote, which I can’t even remember the name of, and Taupo in New Zealand. I’ve never even seen a volcano erupt! Instead, I specialise in mapping ancient magma plumbing systems in 3D and reconstructing their formation. To circle back to my opening remark, we have learned a lot about volcanoes but it seems the more we learn the more complicated...

- Dr. Alison Graettinger “If there is one thing I’ve learned, it’s never to stick your hand into a viscous material” I came across that quote again in the signature of a colleague's email. It is from the 2004 Van Helsing movie. The movie is a bit cheesey, but that advice is very sound. So what does viscous mean? The term viscosity is not a word that most people use every day, but a really useful one if you want to know anything about a fluid or anything that flows. It gets used by your mechanic when discussing different types of oils to put in a car’s engine. Or occasionally in movies involving evil scientists, monsters and gooey things (see above). Even TSA has to have a basic understanding of viscous things as they limit all things that pour, spreads or smears. This covers a range of things that, while they behave like fluids (which means they deform under a force), you might not immediately think of them. Unfortunately, TSA is as just as likely to take away your hair gel...