Talk:Volcanology

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Contents

[edit] Restructuring of Volcano articles

I have restructured many of the articles on Volcanoes. I moved information around, restructuring as I thought appropriate. Here are the pages I changed or created: Volcano, Volcanology, History of Volcanology, and Volcano Prediction. I DID NOT DELETE ANYTHING. I simply moved things around to reduce page size. All content is still there, just some sections are in different pages. Heavy Metal Cellist talkcontribs

p.s. Some of the content in this talk page may now be obsolete. Heavy Metal Cellist talkcontribs

[edit] Modern Volcanology?

Wow if you're interested in Volcanology up to 1600 AD, this is the page for you!

[edit] Vulcanology redirect to volcano

Moved from Wikipedia:Village pump.

Should Vulcanology just be a redirect to volcano? If so, change it. LittleDan

I don't think it should. I'm sure there are interesting things to say about vulcanology; if we leave the page, someone will probably flesh it out one day. Followup to Talk:Vulcanology. -- Merphant 02:31 1 Jun 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Vulcanology and Vulcanologist merged

I will merge vulcanology and vulcanologist. That should improve the content. Emperorbma 08:36 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Merge complete. Final step, remove from stub list. Emperorbma 08:41 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

SPECIAL NOTE: All the old backups for Vulcanologist were NOT transferred. This was a merge. Emperorbma

Relevant contributions to Vulcanologist: (Saved for posterity)

  • 03:39 2 Jul 2003 . . Emperorbma (Step 2: Redirect to Vulcanology.)
  • M 03:33 2 Jul 2003 . . Emperorbma
  • M 03:32 2 Jul 2003 . . Emperorbma
  • M 03:29 2 Jul 2003 . . Emperorbma
  • M 01:02 2 Jul 2003 . . Seav (copyedit)
  • 01:01 2 Jul 2003 . . Seav (stubbly (I'm surprised there's no article yet!))
UPDATE: Subsequently moved to Volcanology. Emperorbma

[edit] Spelling

I think that Volcanology is the more "popular" spelling than Vulcanology. Google says:

Volcanology     43,600 results 
Vulcanology      4,090 results

Volcanologist    9,240 results
Vulcanologist    1,440 results

Looking at the results, it seems that Volcanology is used in the US, Canada, NZ, some UK, some Australia, Germany. Vulcanology is used in the UK, France, Australia, Italy, Canada. —seav 11:35 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)

Mea culpa... I noticed that, but I had already set Volcanology, Volcanologist and Vulcanologist to redirect here by then. Anyway, no one should miss this article, since it covers both spellings. Emperorbma 19:27 2 Jul 2003 (UTC)
It's easy to change it all back. There was a time somebody changed all the links to Manila, Philippines to point to Manila and there were about 150 of them. There is only about 15 vo/vulcanology references. So do we move to 'o'? —seav 03:17 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
If we do change them we will have to move this page to Volcanology and then change all the references, and since there is currently a redirect at Volcanology, we might have issues. Emperorbma 05:18 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)
Apparently the person who wrote the redirect page can overwrite it. OK, I've done as you suggested. Emperorbma
Thanks for moving it! Now, if I can only find someone who will improve the stub. :) —seav 06:54 3 Jul 2003 (UTC)

[edit] Predicting Eruptions

Disagree that volcanic eruptions are unpredictable. There are too many instances of accurate predictions for this old saw to keep popping up.

Agree that many eruptions have not been predicted - but that was always a lack of monitoring and/or understanding of the plumbing.

For documentation of accurate predictions see publications for eruptions at St. Helens, St. Augustine, Pinataubo, Mayon, Spur, Vesuvius, etc.

Next, volcanology is not particularly dangerous for those who pay attention to the available monitoring data. Agree that there have been some spectacular losses, but many fewer than amongst those looking for oil and gold.

Regards ngs@teleport.com

I disagree strongly with your assertion that there are accurate predictions of volcanic eruptions. Volcanologists are actually very careful to specify that they are forecasting, not predicting, eruptions. No volcanologist would say, "This volcano will erupt next Tuesday at 4", which would be a prediction. They would say, "This volcano has a high probability of erupting in the next week", which would be a forecast.
In that, volcanology is a lot like meteorology - it deals in forecasts and probabilities, not absolutes. This issue is an "old saw" only because people seem to think that volcanologists are capable of predicting an eruption. They're not; they can only make very good guesses based on the best data available from their instrumentation. Those guesses improve as the technology and monitoring methods do, but they aren't absolutes, which is what a prediction entails.
I'm curious, as a geologist and a volcanologist, to know what publications you're talking about. St. Helens, for example, was obviously going to erupt soon, but had the scientists there been able to "accurately predict" the eruption, David Johnston would not have been killed. Vesuvius last erupted in 1944, when volcanology was in its infancy and scientists didn't have half the techniques they do now - and certainly no one "predicted" the 79 AD eruption, when thousands of people died in Pompeii and Herculaneum.
Volcanology can also be very dangerous even if you pay attention to the monitoring data. Just because a volcano is quiet one day doesn't mean it won't erupt the next, with or without warning. We don't know a lot about the plumbing of most volcanoes, and even if we do that doesn't mean we understand how they produce eruptions. Volcanologists also face danger from hazardous gases, earthquakes, mudflows, landslides, silicosis from ash, burns from hot material, broken bones and dehydration and sunburn from fieldwork... Lots of volcanologists suffer injuries in their line of work, but only the most grievous losses are publicized enough for non-geologists to hear about them.
Farristry (talk) 20:20, 9 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Stub and catagory

I have made this a Geology stub. This raises the question as to whether Volcanology should be a catagory or just a subcatagory of geology. Commnets anyone?

--NHSavage 15:08, 13 August 2005 (UTC)

Don't know if there's any need to decategorise it...we just need to add to it. I can do that thanks to a fairly nifty book I happen to have, which goes into the history of the science. Anyway...later on.Rolinator 08:16, 10 March 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Rock

I know next to nothing about geology, but this part of the edge of the crater of Volcán Irazú, Costa Rica looks like a fault to me, something that is caused by the distortion of old rocks. But shouldn't a volcanic crater have all 'fresh', 'unfolded' rock? I don't know where to put this image, so I'll leave that to the experts. (Let's see where flattery gets me:) ). DirkvdM 12:31, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Looks like an unconformity, a more recent lava flow on top of older material. The tilting - craters result from the collapse of a volcanic core which creates considerable local faulting and distortion, so folded or tilted and distorted lava layers are to be expected around a caldera collapse. Vsmith 13:12, 31 August 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Merge from History of Volcanology

The entire content of History of Volcanology has been merged into Volcanology, and that page is now a redirect. There is no need for a separate article yet, and this article is vastly improved by including that content directly within it. This article was just a stub otherwise. --Seattle Skier (See talk tierS) 00:59, 25 April 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Mythical History of Volcanology

That section reads like it was written by a four year old. I have no idea what it's talking about. Valcanoes I guess.. --unsigned

The christian section is not that neutral "miraculously" and "clove" sounds like it's taken from an f'in sermon. M4bwav 19:01, 2 October 2007 (UTC)

Archaeologists now believe that the Catalhoyuk painting doesn't represent an erupting volcano; this interpretation dates from 1964 and further work at the site has pretty much disproven this interpretation. I have 3 scholarly articles to footnote this, and plan to change this paragraph in a few days, but am open to discussion before doing so. Sm255 (talk) 13:00, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Also, the jpg that purports to be the Anatolian Museum of Civilizations wall painting, is a distorted and inaccurate copy of the original. The person who added it says he made it himself - certainly posting any actual reproduction of the painting would violate copyright - but we should not let this inaccurate graphic remain here. Sm255 (talk) 13:11, 30 May 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Tools and techniques of volcanology

An anon editor using an Indiana University IP recently added content to this section. The user gave Harvard style references (name and date), but did not finish with full references in a reference section. I have made an attempt to fill out the missing refs with a bit of googling and searching on Amazon. Hopefully I haven't messed 'em up too badly :-) and perhaps the anon will return and correct any errors I have made. Vsmith 01:07, 30 July 2007 (UTC)