Mapped: The world's most active volcanoes

Kilauea, Hawaii, one of the most active volcanoes in the world

 CREDIT: ISTOCK

Hugh Morris, travel news editor 14 JANUARY 2020

Volcanic eruptions in any corner of the planet make the news - as seen with column inches devoted to this week’s explosion of Taal, 40 miles south of Manila, Philippines.

The eruption has spewed a massive cloud of ash into the sky and led to the evacuation of thousands of residents and suspension of scores of flights in the region.

But though it might seem that such an event is rare, more likely to be seen in a blockbuster film than in real life, volcanic life is much more energetic than one might imagine.

According to the National Museum of Natural History’s Global Volcanism Program (GVP), there are more than 1,400 active volcanoes around the world, with more than a handful erupting at any given moment.

Taal is just one of 25 volcanoes in a state of “eruption” right now, according to data collated by volcanoesandearthquakes.com. Described as “very small but a dangerous volcano” by Renato Solidum, head of the Philippines’ Institute of Volcanology and Seismology, Taal is one of the world’s most active volcanos, having erupted at least 35 times in the last few hundred years. The most recent was 1977.

On the map, below, dozens more are marked as in a state of “unrest” and “warning/minor activity”, with intense activity around the fault lines south-east Asia (Ring of Fire) and central America. 

[enlarge]

The volcanoes typically mentioned as the most active in modern history are often those that loom large in collective consciousness: Kilauea, Hawaii’s most active, which erupted in 2018; Stromboli and Etna in Italy, and the Piton de la Fournaise on La Reunion, which has erupted three times in the last 10 years.

Website Volcano Discovery says that after those it is hard to make distinctions, but mentions Erbus, on Antarctica, Unzen in Japan, and Arenal in Costa Rica.

The Global Volcanism Program states that detailed statistics are not kept on daily activity but that generally there are around 20 volcanoes “actively erupting at any particular time”. At its last count, at the end of December, there were 43.

Which country has the most volcanoes?

According to the Global Volcanism Program, there are 1,428 volcanoes on the planet that have erupted at some point in the last 10,000 years, the current geological epoch otherwise known as the Holocene period.

The majority of these are found in clusters, or strips, mostly following the faultlines of the world’s tectonic plates. For this reason, mapping the world’s volcanoes according to country is slightly misleading, as most are linked to the same geological highway.

The 10 countries with the most volcanoes

United States - 173

Russia - 166

Indonesia - 139

Iceland - 130

Japan - 112

Chile - 104

Ethiopia - 57

Papua New Guinea - 53

Philippines - 50

Mexico - 43

The "Ring of Fire" that encircles the Pacific Ocean – which stretches up the west coast of the Americas, around and across to Asia, looping down to the east of Japan, before overwhelming much of Indonesia and the Philippines and whipping around Australasia – boasts the most, with 452.

This is why Indonesia has the third most volcanoes in the world, at 139. The island of Bali has three: Agung, Batur and Buyan-Bratan. Japan comes fourth with 112. Chile (also on the Ring of Fire, on the cusp of the South American plate) is fifth, with 104.

But it is the United States that takes the title with the most, 173, followed by Russia, with 166 – both large countries, and also both on the Ring of Fire.

Another hotspot for volcanoes is on the African continent, where the African Plate meets the Arabian Plate, which is why Kenya (23), Tanzania (10) and Ethiopia (57) boast a wealth of volcanoes.

One of the anomalies in volcanic activity over the last 11,000 or so years is Iceland, which appears on the map above to sit alone on a cluster of volcanoes. This is because Iceland is part of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, where the Eurasian and North American Plates meet (you can scuba dive in a gap between the two). It was created by the volcanic rifting between two tectonic plates, which explains its fondness for eruptions and geysers.

At a glance | Where are the world's most famous volcanoes?

Mount Vesuvius, Italy

The volcano responsible for burying the the Roman town of Pompeii and Herculaneum in AD79, affording archaeologists today with a society frozen in time, including haunting figures of men, women and children shielding themselves from the eruption, still looms over Naples.

Big bang: Krakatoa ALAMY

Krakatoa, Indonesia

The island is famous as the site one of the world's biggest eruptions, in 1883, which unleashed two huge tsunamis that killed more than 36,000 people and emitted what is considered to be the loudest sound ever heard, with reports that the noise of the blast reached as far as 3,000 miles away.

Mount St Helens, Washington, US

Located in the Cascade Range, a segment of the Ring of Fire, Mount St Helens is known for its ash explosions and pyroclastic flows, as well as its 1980 eruption, which caused more than a billion dollars worth of damage, flattened hundreds of square miles of land and killed 57 people.

Eyjafjallajökull's ash cloud brought Europe's air traffic to a halt ALAMY

Eyjafjallajökull, Iceland

A series of small eruptions under the ice cap of the same name lasted about three months and, at its peak in April 2010, led to chaos above Europe when a gigantic ash cloud shut the airspace of about 20 countries for six days, affecting 10 million travellers.

Mount Fuji, Japan

Japan's most active volcano last erupted in 1708 and is perhaps best known for its visibility from Tokyo on a clear day. Mount Fuji is one of the "Three Holy Mountains", a World Heritage Site and one of Japan's Special Places of Scenic Beauty.

https://www.volcanodiscovery.com/volcano-calendar2020.html

---30---

Hundreds of thousands could be stranded by world's 'most dangerous' volcano for months

Taal's volcanic cloud has been lit up by spectacular lightening storms 

 CREDIT: GETTY IMAGES/EZRA ACAYAN

Nicola Smith, asia correspondent 14 JANUARY 2020 •


Hundreds of thousands of people in the Philippines have been left in fear for their homes and livelihood after being warned to immediately flee one of the world’s most dangerous volcanoes, which threatens either an imminent “explosive eruption” or constant activity for months.

The Philippine Institute of Volcanology and Seismology (Phivolcs) is maintaining the alert level for the Taal volcano at 4, meaning a hazardous eruption is possible within hours to days, and has urged the evacuation of everyone within an 8.6-mile radius.

According to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), around 459,000 live within the most dangerous zone. The Philippine Red Cross said on Tuesday that close to 25,000 had been able to evacuate, but urged others to leave urgently.

“I’m not trying to scare everybody, but we are preparing for the worst. The possibility of an explosive eruption is high. The challenge right now is taking care of many evacuees. Even more people need to be evacuated,” said chairman, Richard Gordon. “Bring your animals and livestock to evacuation centres if you must.”
Local residents have been traumatised by the volcano's eruption

 CREDIT: AARON FAVILA/AP


Phivolcs has recorded more than 300 earthquakes since Taal, a small but deadly volcano that sits in a picturesque lake some 45 miles south of central Manila, the capital, violently spewed a plume of steaming ash from its crater into the stratosphere on Sunday.

It has experienced at least 34 eruptions in the past 450 years, including a 200-day eruption in 1754, and a violent explosion in 1911 that claimed more than 1,300 lives. The volcano’s last period of activity was from 1965 to 1977.

Mariton Bornas, chief of the Phivolcs’ Volcano Monitoring and Eruption Prediction Division, told The Telegraph that while there had been an apparent decrease in the activity of the main crater, the “volcanic earthquake activity” had not abated within the last 24 hours.

New fissures had also appeared on Tuesday in the southwest and also northwest, where they had been spotted during the 1911 eruption, she added.

It was difficult to predict how long people would have to remain away from their homes, she said. “If we look at the past behaviour of the volcano, it’s very varied. It could be as quick as the 1911 eruption which lasted from 27 to 30 January, or as long as 1754, which was seven months.”
Residents living along Taal lake catch fish in the shadow of the volcano 

CREDIT: TED ALJIBE/AFP


Authorities in the surrounding province, Batangas, which has been covered in deep layers of suffocating ash, have declared a "state of calamity,” while schools and businesses in Manila remained closed on Tuesday due to bad air quality and hundreds of flight cancellations have caused travel chaos.



The government has urged desperate residents concerned about looting and their livestock not to risk returning to their homes in the immediate vicinity of the volcano.

Left in limbo, their panic has not been eased by viral pictures and videos of suffering, muddied animals on social media. In one heartbreaking clip, a man tries to calm distressed horses caked in thick, grey ash.

Professor Richard Arculus, an Australian volcanologist, formerly a professor of the School of Earth Sciences at the Australian National University, told The Telegraph that the authorities would likely stick to the “precautionary principle” as the worst-case scenario could be so catastrophic.


Vegetation near the volcano has been left layered in ash

 CREDIT: AARON FAVILA/AP

Taal is known as a “complex volcano” because it has several eruption points that have changed over time.

“It’s one of the smallest volcanos in the world but a volcano doesn’t have to be high to be lethal. Many of the more intensely dangerous volcanic centres are negative volcanos - are holes in the ground or big lakes,” said Professor Arculus.

Predicting eruptions had become easier, but past behaviour could not be trusted as a reliable indicator of what was to come, he cautioned.

While Taal could still “fizzle out” or “rumble for weeks to months,” one of the biggest fears was an eruption accompanied by a “base surge,” he said.

The phenomenon – horizontally-travelling hurricane force winds laden with water, dust and ash – was first observed by scientists tracking underwater nuclear tests in Bikini Atoll in the Pacific in the 1940s.

When the explosion broke the surface of the sea, the energy expanded not only upwards but in a horizontally and circumferentially expanding blast hugging the water surface, he explained.


Many residents are worried about leaving their livestock behind CREDIT: AARON FAVILA/AP

Tourists who were killed or injured in the recent volcanic eruption on New Zealand’s White Island, had been caught up in a base surge. Moreover, Taal was the first volcano where this kind of blast was recorded, he said, adding that it could travel for several miles and also cause a tsunami.

A second major hazard would be the potential collapse of the volcano’s column if the energy being dissipated into the stratosphere suddenly eased off.

“The collapse of the column can be coming at high speed and there is no way for you to escape, so that can blanket the surrounding countryside with what is known as a pyroclastic flow,” said Professor Arculus, referring to a fast-moving current of hot gas and volcanic matter that can reach 700 km/h.

Finally, the location of Taal in a lake raised the risk of “the direct interaction between magna, the vapour coming off the magma and groundwater,” creating “an explosive situation,” he said. “All of this is bad news.”

Scientists calculating Taal’s activity with seismographs, gas measurements, and inflation and deflation sensors to track the magma body, face an unenviable task.

While the 8.6 miles- radius around the volcano is considered the most dangerous, the dangerzone extends to a wider 10.5 miles, including some 930,000 residents.

“I really sympathise with the people trying to predict getting a million people out of the way in the event that it’s better for them to be out of the way than living around the shores of the lake. How long they are gone for, we don’t know.”

---30---