A boom heard 'round a good portion of the world

Aug. 26, 1883: Krakatau Erupts, Changes World … Again

Krakatau (aka Krakatoa) had been rumbling and sending up puffs of ash since May 1883. The eruption turned deadly on the afternoon of Aug. 26, with the first explosion coming at 1 p.m. A column of black ash soon rose 17 miles into the sky above the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra.

The earth around and under the volcano continued to move, sending a tsunami out around 5 p.m. Others would follow.

Explosions continued at night, and lightning jumped between the ash column and the island. St. Elmo’s Fire played on a ship’s yardarms and rigging 25 miles away, ash fell on its deck, and explosions deafened its crew.

Just after 10 a.m. on the morning of Aug. 27 came the final, cataclysmic explosion with 26 times the power of the biggest H-bomb test. As Krakatau’s underground magma chamber emptied, the sea rushed in, at first sucking ships toward it in an inbound current. Then the 2,600-foot-high volcanic cone collapsed into the center, leaving little of the island above water and sending out a truly colossal tsunami.

30 years later, we're still thinking of volcanoes

On May 18, 1980, Mt St Helens, in Washington state, erupted.

Mt St Helens erupting:


And this one:


Here is a time-lapse of the last thirty years of the area and how it's changed:


In their May issue, National Geographic cover story was on Mt St Helens. You can see various articles on their website about the volcano, its eruption, etc. here.

Of course, it's not like volcanoes are old news. There's Eyjafjallajökull, a subglacial volcano in Iceland, which is currently erupting and causing headaches for air travel due to its ash clouds over Europe:


Thanks to Occasion for sharing the last one. It is truly magnificent.

In 1980 I had just moved to Kansas. The family joke is that whenever we leave an area, disaster hits it. In South Carolina and Louisiana, tornadoes touched down near where we lived. In 1980 we left the West Coast (California) there were earthquakes and Mt St Helens blew. I don't know if there were tornadoes when we left Kansas in 1982, but then what do you think the chances were?

Anyway, I remember on the news the great amounts of ash on people's cars and pretty much everywhere within its path. The sunsets were beautiful, of course. But unfortunately 57 people died as a result of the eruption. There was the good fortune that it happened on a Sunday, when loggers were not at work, or the death toll might have been higher. So as we pay homage to a terrible yet beautiful natural phenomenon, it's a good time to remember them as well.

Librarians get good press in the Chronicle of Higher Education

An English Scholar Under a (Volcanic) Cloud

Joseph Bristow has been stranded in Ireland since a volcanic ash cloud halted air travel in Britain. Mr. Bristow, a professor of English at the University of California at Los Angeles, went to Ireland for a conference and to meet with researchers there. Then, last week, the now-infamous volcano in Iceland erupted. Mr. Bristow stopped to talk to The Chronicle by cellphone Wednesday while visiting a cathedral in Galway.

Says Professor Bristow, when asked whether he'd kept up with work back at UCLA:

My laptop crashed and I needed unrestricted access to e-mail. I thought if I went to [the Mary Immaculate] campus, I might get some help. The librarians were unfailingly helpful. They gave me access in their reference area to e-mail. I must have spent about five to six hours on e-mail, especially with my students.

Thanks to Martin at LISNews for the link.

Sometimes the news seems to parallel the Cthulhu game I play in

We are currently playing a module called 'Utati Asfet', which begins in the Pacific island of Tonga, although we're currently in New Orleans. During the stay in Tonga we encountered a professor who was studying undersea geology. So of course, this caught my eye:

Inspectors head to undersea volcano in Tonga: Eruption in South Pacific not presently a threat to islanders, authorities say

Apparently this area, a few miles from the main island of Tongatapu, has 36 or so of these undersea volcanoes. The eruption is between the twin volcanic islands of Hunga Tonga and Hunga Ha'apai, and within sight of the capital, Nuku'alofa. All of these places came up in our adventure.

I suspect we'll be returning to Tonga later in the story. I wouldn't be surprised if an eruption or earthquake happened...or rather a tentacled monster rose from the sea. :)

PS Sorry for those of you not in the know regarding pencil-and-paper (as opposed to computer) roleplaying games, Call of Cthulhu, or HP Lovecraft--this post probably doesn't make a bit of sense. But I've been playing this game continuously for nearly 18 years, so it should be of no surprise that I blog about it now and then. It's fairly educational--I didn't even know where Tonga was before we started, and I'm pretty decent with geography.