Erik Klemetti
eklemetti | September 1, 2010
Big news from Eruptions (and me.)
Eruptions has always been an evolving space - it started as a little side project on Wordpress that has grown over the last two-and-a-half years into a community of volcano enthusiasts. The blog has drawn over 2.5 million views and 1.5 million visits since I started it in May of 2008 - which, to me, is mindblowing - and I thank of all your for that. I also thank ScienceBlogs for helping more people find the blog over the last 18 months that I've been lucky to be hosted here.
However, with all things, change is sometimes needed. I'm not going to go into the…
eklemetti | August 22, 2010I am back from our trip into the Mountain West - and it was great (see some of the pictures below). We hit Yellowstone, the Grand Tetons, the Tobacco Root Mountains, Glacier and Craters of the Moon - and the weather held out on us just fine.
This week is the last week before classes start here at Denison, so post might be a little sparse this week ... and next week will bring something big to Eruptions, so stay tuned. I'll try to post some news soon as I get caught back up with what has been happening (including all the Katla talk). Special thanks again to Boris Behncke for the great Etna…
eklemetti | August 10, 2010
Well, the summer is rapidly coming to an end - classes start here at Denison on August 30. So, we are trying to squeeze what we can out of the season and to that end, I'll be on one of these things called "vacations" for the next couple weeks. (Oh yeah, and I will be going through Yellowstone, so I'll personally check on those earthquakes, OK?)
That means Eruptions will be operating on the second summer schedule. No new posts until August 23, but some upcoming (automatically posted) articles including the answers to your questions for Sally Kuhn Sennert of the Global Volcanism Program and…
eklemetti | July 19, 2010I'm officially out of the mountains in the Mineral King area - the field work went great, we collected some fabulous Triassic-Jurassic rhyolites from a pendant in the Sierra Nevada Batholith (and also enjoyed blueberry-sized hail and an unfortunate hike through a thorny thicket). I'll have more to say later, but now I'll be diving headlong into working on papers during my few days here in Davis ... but I'll try to catch up on all your comments left while I was away!
The Mineral King region of the Sierra Nevada in California. Click on the image to see a larger version. Image by Erik Klemetti…
eklemetti | July 11, 2010
New eruption? New volcano research announced? New media attention put on all things volcanic? Post it here and feel free to discuss ...
I'll be back July 20.
eklemetti | July 8, 2010Thanks for all the words/advice about Pepsigeddon here at SB. If you missed it, the powers that be have officially pulled the plug on the PepsiBlog. However, this crisis (as much as blogging can be a crisis) has reinforced a lot of long-standing problems with the management here at SB, so not to sound like Fox Mulder, there is a lot more going on than meets the eye. Now that PepsiBlog is down, I'll return to posting at SB (for the time being at least). However, SB has lost a lot of credibility and very good bloggers as well, so times, they are a'changin'. I strongly believe in keeping a…
eklemetti | July 7, 2010
This hiatus for Eruptions lead me to do one thing I said I would never do ... but strange times call for strange measures. Eruptions has opened up a Twitter account (and I feel a little dirty about it), so if you want to follow the sporadic posts that might show up there, you can follow the blog - eruptionsblog. Now, I can't guarantee a lot of tweets, but for now, if something comes up, you can look there ... and we'll see where it goes from there.
eklemetti | July 7, 2010If you haven't heard, ScienceBlogs HQ has put its foot squarely in its jaw thanks to a little poor decision-making. Now, Eruptions is a little outside the mainstream of ScienceBlogs - there aren't many corporations that might influence my posting (unless you suddenly see "Eruptions - brought to you by RyanAir" the next time an Icelandic volcano erupts), so I would hope that the credibility of this blog is hopefully not too threatening by the PepsiBlog, but I feel for my other ScienceBloggers who may be adversely effected for various reasons. In solidarity with them, Eruptions will be quiet…
eklemetti | May 2, 2010
Chaiten in Chile erupting on May 5, 2008, four days after the volcano came back to life after ~9,000 years of dormancy.
Quick post ... but until I was reminded by Eruptions reader Guillermo, I had forgotten two important anniversaries.
First, today (May 1) marks the 2nd anniversary of the start of the Chaiten eruption in Chile. The eruption is still rumbling along (spanish), with growth of three domes in the Chaiten caldera. I'll have more to say about this on Monday.
Secondly, today also marks the second anniversary for the start of this blog! Yes, if you can believe it, Eruptions turns two…
eklemetti | April 15, 2010
A brief, non-volcano-related note, but sometime between 12:30 and 1 PM EDT today, Eruptions will pass 1,000,000 page views since joining ScienceBlogs in March of 2009. I wanted to thank everyone who has made the blog such a fun thing to do and who pick up on reporting the events when I'm swamped. You've made it into a community of volcanophiles unto itself.
Now, back to the volcanoes!
eklemetti | March 14, 2010Big volcano news while I'm away in Death Valley? Post it here - or just discuss all the volcanic bits that you run across ...
Moonrise over Ubehebe Crater, California.
eklemetti | February 23, 2010Posts might be a little sparse for the next few days - I'm recovering from a rather nasty bout with a flu-type thing, so I'm fallen behind in pretty much everything. I'll try to get back up to speed here in a few days, but if you run across any fascinating volcano news, feel free to post it here.
eklemetti | February 8, 2010
This is a request more related to my teaching, but I thought I'd ask here. I'm trying to find copies of the UNESCO videos "Understanding Volcanic Hazards" and "Reducing Volcanic Risk". They were made by the Kraffts to help educate people on volcanic hazards, especially in developing countries. I've seen them both and they are great for introductory geology classes. However, the one source I knew of - the NW Interpretive Assoc. - doesn't seem to carry them anymore - and even if they did, the only format I know of is VHS, which is getting woefully obsolete.
So, do any of you know where I might…
eklemetti | February 2, 2010
I've been seeing a lot of questions popping up in the comments - and for me, I find it difficult to answer them in the confines of post comments. Many of them are quite good and would probably be of interest to lots of Eruptions readers, so I thought maybe it is time for another Eruptions mailbag post.
So, without further ado, email me your burning volcano-related questions! Send them to by February 15, and I'll try to answer as many as I can in a mailbag post.
Looking forward to your questions!
eklemetti | January 14, 2010Sometimes it is easy to feel overwhelmed by a disaster like the earthquake in Haiti - I mean, how much can someone sitting in their office thousands of miles away do? It isn't really feasible for most people to pull up stakes and go to give first-hand assistance during the recovery - but you feel like you need to do something. The first step is just trying to offer whatever assistance you can in whatever limited way you can. Many of us might not have a lot of money to spare - but that is the key word, "spare". That means "leftover". That means you have money to begin with - so some sacrifice…
eklemetti | December 31, 2009Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow.
Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti.
January
The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008…
eklemetti | December 20, 2009Hard to believe that the 2009 holidays are upon us and 2010 is around the corner. Eruptions will be going on a short break until the 28th of December - you likjley won't see any new posts here until then unless something big happens. However, there will be a special Christmas-themed MVP coming out on Christmas Day and the nominations for the "Volcanic Event of the Year". What is that, you ask? Well, for 2009, Eruptions will have a 2009 volcanic summary coming out sometime around New Years and at the end I'll name the 2009 Volcanic Event of the Year - some eruption or events leading to an…
eklemetti | November 13, 2009Just a note to all my readers: I've discovered today that Gmail has been eating (sending to the Spam folder) a significant amount of emails I've received to eruptionsblog gmail.com. This includes some of the questions submitted to Dr. Behncke (and other emails I'm sure) and comments pending on the blog. Sorry about the inconvenience, especially if I haven't replied to your email. I'll try to catch up over the weekend.
eklemetti | October 20, 2009I did a really terrible job of updating during the Geological Society of America meeting - mostly because (a) I was way too busy, (b) an iffy internet connection at my home and (c) a lack of concentration.
However, there was quite a bit of interesting info I heard which I'll likely post tomorrow including:
The northern Cascades of the US are filled with calderas.
The eruption of Kasatochi was quite impressive (if you didn't think so already).
Bubbles at Erebus come from deep down.
Holocene volcanism in Colorado.
Thanks to all the people I met this week as well, including Callan Bentley, Tuff…
eklemetti | October 16, 2009
Mt. Hood seen from Portland, Oregon. Image courtesy of the USGS/CVO.
I will be returning to my old haunts in Oregon (got my Ph.D. from Oregon State University - and yes, that is me in the upper left hand corner) for the next 6 days for the the Cascades, CVO and the multitude of igneous-rock-studying folks at Oregon State, Portland State, Univ. of Oregon, Univ. of Washington and so on, there is an awful lot to see. Two sessions I'm especially excited about are on supervolcanic/ignimbrite flareups and the Cascades volcanism and tectonics. A couple of these talks/posters I had some hand in, so…