The Southern Peninsula (Suðurnes) is the western part of the Reykjanes Peninsula; the border is drawn to exclude Reykjavik and its suburbs. Suðurnes is the first point of call for most visitors to ...

The double-booked land is also known as the Afar Triangle, a low-lying region wedged into the Ethiopian Plateau. The region is not for the intrepid. The name is synonymous with remoteness. It is also ...

After our ‘quantum Katla’ post, it is now time to return to the real Katla. For in the real world, Katla has been showing unusually strong shaking. It turned out that Henrik had already done much of ...

Mid-oceanic rifts should be in the middle of the ocean they formed. And often they are, but there are exceptions. The Reykjanes Rift, south of Iceland, is one of these. It is well known for its ...

The bird struts across the henge as if its owns the place. It is quite a sight itself: large, confident, and long extinct. It was re-introduced here a decade ago but is rarely seen. Great bustards are ...

In my last article I wrote about the Turkana, volcanism that is part of the Great African Rift. But unbeknownst to most this is just one of several rift systems in Africa that are tearing the ...

The August 24 th eruption of Vesuvius in 79 AD is the most famous and well-known volcanic eruption of all time. By now, volcanologists have pieced together the sequence of events to form a coherent ...

It is a narrow but passable road, or at least it used to be. It begins at the Saddle Road which crosses Hawai’i between Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa. Both mountains have observatories at or near the summit ...

It seemed to come out of nowhere. In the midst of a quiet interlude, after the hugely damaging La Palma had ended, when the hugely touristic eruption at Fagradalsfjall failed to re-appear, and the ...

Imagine. Around you is a sea of sand, stretching out far beyond the horizon. Mirages reflect the cloudless sky, and suggest water where only sand rules. But strangely, a mile ahead a river pushes ...

America came late. Humanity had come from Africa, and spread out over Eurasia. This happened mainly during the ice age, when lower sea levels allowed walking migration where previously a significant ...

Here is the famous Steppe, the dry grass-land, the never-ending plain stretching across Eurasia from China to Hungary. Rainfall is too limited for trees to grow. The climate is harsh, with hot summers ...