Volcanic activity encompasses all processes associated with the movement and eruption of magma and volatiles from Earth’s interior to its surface, including effusive lava flows, explosive eruptions, degassing, and the formation of associated edifices and deposits. It is governed by magma generation in the mantle and crust, melt composition, temperature, volatile content, and tectonic setting (e.g., subduction zones, rifts, hotspots). Volcanic activity is studied through petrology, geophysics, gas geochemistry, geodesy, and remote sensing to quantify eruption dynamics, magma ascent rates, and hazard potential, and it exerts major controls on crustal growth, surface morphology, and volatile fluxes to the atmosphere and hydrosphere.
New research by Brown University geologists confirms that the Aleutian Islands, the archipelago stretching from Alaska to Russia's Kamchatka Peninsula, experienced a massive geological uplift between 5 million and 7 million ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 26, 2026
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A new international study has found that Indigenous oral traditions, some thousands of years old, hold valuable and often overlooked insights into volcanic eruptions—offering important lessons for modern disaster preparedness. ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 24, 2026
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On May 8, 2026, satellites detected signs of an unexpected submarine volcanic eruption in the Bismarck Sea near the islands of Papua New Guinea. Over the next several weeks, plumes of steam and ash streamed over the sea, ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 20, 2026
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It's 2158, and you're chugging away on your Ph.D. in planetary volcanology from the University of Utopia Planitia on Mars. Graduate students still get paid a sub-living wage, so you've been stuck eating freeze-dried ramen ...
Astrobiology
Jun 17, 2026
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Scientists have discovered that the southern Andes Mountains don't rise slowly and steadily as previously thought. Instead, the range builds itself in short, powerful "pulses" every few million years.
Earth Sciences
Jun 17, 2026
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A chain of remote islands and underwater volcanoes between Alaska and Kamchatka has revealed a much older chapter in Earth's tectonic history than previously known. Along the Aleutian Arc, the Pacific Plate dives beneath ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 16, 2026
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Over 40,000 seamounts—undersea mountains that don't breach the ocean's surface—are scattered across the ocean floor. Some form linear chains, while others occur as dispersed, isolated features that are not part of well-defined ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 15, 2026
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Researchers at Geosciences Barcelona (GEO3BCN-CSIC) have developed a novel way to monitor the silent accumulation of volcanic gases beneath Earth's surface using seismic ambient noise. The results could significantly improve ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 9, 2026
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Scientists have shed light on a thermal process in magma that may help explain why similar volcanic systems can produce very different eruptive behaviors.
Earth Sciences
Jun 8, 2026
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160
The plumbing systems of volcanoes are vast and complex. But they aren't consistent, even in the same volcano. A Cornell-led collaboration found very different mechanisms behind two historic eruptions of Mount Etna in Italy. ...
Earth Sciences
Jun 6, 2026
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