Geologic History of Cuba

As the Atlantic Ocean began to open, some 160 million years ago (MYA), the North and South American Plates were forced westward, a tectonic ...

Axial Seamount, Iceland & Hawaii

Oceanic volcanic islands develop above mantle hotspots or along mid oceanic ridges where the sea floor is spreading.  The Hawaiian Ridge i...

Andes Volcanism

The eruption of the Calbuco Volcano in southern Chile this week is that peak's first significant activity since 1972 and the most recent...

Zealandia

Zealandia is a long, relatively narrow fragment of continental crust that split from Antarctica early in the Cretaceous Period (about 120 mi...

Geology of Vanuatu Archipelago

This past week, the Vanuatu Archipelago of the southwestern Pacific Ocean has been in the news due to massive destruction wrought by Typhoon...

The Yampa River

The Yampa River, 250 miles in length, rises along the west flank of the Park Range, flowing north to Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and then t...

Mount Pavlov Eruption

Mount Pavlov, 8560 feet, is a stratovolcano on the Alaskan Peninsula, some 600 miles southwest of Anchorage.  It formed within the last 10,0...

Gonzalo rakes Bermuda

Forty million years ago, Bermuda, 640 miles ESE of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, was part of a volcanic island chain that towered above the...

Tragedy on Mount Ontake

Japan sits at the intersection of four major tectonic plates, making that country especially prone to earthquakes, tsunamis and volcanic act...

Earth's Mass Extinctions

During the course of life on Earth, which began 3.6 billion years ago, the diversity of species on our planet has been determined by a myria...

Hotspot Fields and Ridges

A volcanic hotspot is produced by a mantle plume, which pushes up into the crust, melting bedrock and, in most cases, erupting at the surfac...

Sierra Grande

The Clayton-Raton Volcanic Field stretches across northeastern New Mexico, extending into southern Colorado and extreme western Oklahoma.  P...

Australian Volcanism

Most of the active volcanoes on Earth occur along subduction zones of the Pacific Rim and western Indonesia.  Others rise above hotspots (bo...

The Society Islands

The Society Islands of the South Pacific mirror the Hawaiian Chain, 2700 miles to their north.  They too are a linear archipelago that forme...

San Juan Volcanism

The San Juan Mountains of southwest Colorado overlie the remnants of Uncompahgria, the western uplift of the Ancestral Rocky Mountains that ...

Copahue Volcano Eruption

The Copahue Volcano, in the Andes on the border of Argentina and Chile, is erupting once again, sending a cloud of ash one mile into the atm...

North American Japan

The northeastern half of Japan lies on the North American Plate, which dips down from the Aleutian Chain, crosses the middle of Honshu (Japa...

Lassen Peak

Rising just north of the Sierra Nevada Range, Lassen Peak (10,461 feet) and its cohort of volcanic domes represent the southern end of the C...

Mt. Taylor

In late September of 1975, I caught my first glimpse of a snow-capped western mountain; it was Mt. Taylor, 11,302 feet, rising WNW of Albuqu...

Costa Rica's Earthquake

Yesterday's earthquake off the west coast of Costa Rica occurred along a subduction zone where the Cocos Plate is dipping beneath the Ca...