Smartphones and volcanic eruptions

Volcanic hazards

Mayon continues to erupt... does this man let that stop him tending his land?

This man in Philippines is not letting the erupting Mayon volcano stop him from taking care of his farm. pic.twitter.com/5ImunLFGU6

— Al Jazeera English (@AJEnglish) February 4, 2018

Pyroclastic Flows - Volcanic Impacts

Well worth watching by Year 10, with respect to the Hazard Risk equation...

VOLFILM Pyroclastic Flow Impacts (English) from VolFilm on Vimeo.
and here is what they are....

VOLFILM Pyroclastic Flow Hazard (English) from VolFilm on Vimeo

Click the VOLFilm link to see 2 more films on lahars.

Expedition Volcano - one to watch...

Check out BBC2 at 9 o' clock tonight (after Blue Planet II has finished) for the first episode in a series based around the Nyiragongo volcano 

Details from BBC iPlayer website

In the heart of Africa, deep in the Congo, is one of the most spectacular volcanoes on Earth - Nyiragongo. This spectacular volcano contains a massive boiling cauldron of molten rock - the world's largest continually active lava lake. But it is also one of the most dangerous volcanoes on the planet. It has erupted twice in the last 50 years, most recently in 2002, wreaking havoc and destruction on the people who live in the nearby city of Goma. This region is also dangerous for another reason - it has been racked by war and humanitarian crises for most of the last 30 years, so Nyiragongo is one of the least studied active volcanoes on Earth.

But now, an international and local team of scientists are mounting a major expedition to study the volcano. They are attempting to discover the warning signs that it is building towards a new eruption, so they can alert the people of Goma before it erupts again. The team will take around four tonnes of climbing equipment, scientific instruments and supplies up to the crater rim. Then a small team will descend into the crater itself - 350m down a potentially deadly rockface - to spend a week camping right next to the lava lake. The expedition is led by Belgian scientist Dr Benoit Smets, who is an expert on Nyiragongo. He is joined by British geologist Prof Chris Jackson. Together, they work with the rest of the team using gas-sampling equipment, thermal cameras and sound waves to try and predict when the volcano will next erupt.

But there is another side to this volcano. As well as the threat of eruption, it impacts life in Goma and the surrounding area in many surprising ways. Humanitarian doctor Xand van Tulleken investigates how Nyiragongo has transformed people's lives by looking at the hidden dangers - from deadly disease to suffocating gases. In charge of expedition logistics is former Royal Marine Aldo Kane. It is his job to get everyone in and out of the crater safely. But during the expedition, he will also risk his life to get the team as near to the lava lake as possible.

El Nino / La Nina pop-up

Thanks to Ben Newbury for producing and sharing the El Nino pop up here at the TES site.
I used it last week, and it went down very well and we had some great results from it.







You need to download the presentation and the accompanying template.

I had to re-print the two sides of the template as it was not quite aligned when it was printed off. This should be done on card to keep the rigidity in the final pop-up element. The powerpoint is very useful in providing all the steps required.
The students really enjoyed the activity, and there were some great outcomes within an hour. Here's one of them:

Finishing touches... pic.twitter.com/OkEAVXmZ4R

— KingsElyGeographers (@KingsElyGeog) September 29, 2017

ESRI Water Balance App

Thanks to Bob Lang for the tipoff to this excellent app.

https://livingatlas.arcgis.com/waterbalance/

The water balance panel (on the left) shows how much recharge or depletion occurred during your chosen month, and how this compares to what’s normal. The trend analyzer panel (on the right) shows how your chosen variable was different in the same month during other years. This panel also allows you to see the seasonal variation during a normal year (by graphing the average for each month) or aggregate the time series into annual time steps to see the long term trend more clearly.