current (05+06/2018) Kilauea/Hawaii and volcán de fuego/Guatemala

[Dweller_Benthos]

Very scary. The Guatemala eruption looks like it's mostly pyroclastic flows, which can be very dangerous. The Hawaii eruption is mostly hot lava that flows, but for the most part, you know where it's coming from, the general direction it's going and have time to get out of the way. A pyroclastic flow can travel very fast, cross water, and bury you in hot ash and debris in seconds. Just ask the people in Pompeii.

[Art Blade]

They wouldn't talk

But indeed, the Guatemalan volcano is apparently mostly causing pyroclastic flows.

There seem to be volcanic activities in Yellowstone, too.

[fragger]

The Yellowstone activity is a bit of a worry. It's a supervolcano, long regarded as the largest on Earth, yet very recent studies indicate that the magma chamber may actually be far larger than previously thought. If it ever goes up all at once, it would make the Krakatoa eruption look like a firecracker. The effects on the planet would essentially be equivalent to that of a world-wide nuclear winter. Its last full eruption was about 640,000 years ago. That blast threw over 200 cubic miles of earth into the sky and ultimately caused a mass-extinction event.

Knock on wood.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Yeah, caldera volcanoes are really scary, but since there is absolutely nothing that can be done about it, why worry? 

If you dig in the ground in Nebraska, you'll hit a layer of volcanic ash, and all the fossils of the various creatures that lived then (about 2 million years ago if memory serves) have lesions on the bones that show they were breathing ash filled air before they died. They traced the ash to a caldera volcano in Idaho (Hi PZ!) that erupted at the right time to cause the ash fall in Nebraska.

That ash layer is six feet thick.

[Art Blade]

[Art Blade]

finally some recent news.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Interesting. Nice to hear what's going on now, as once the excitement died down you didn't hear anything on the news.

[Art Blade]

exactly why I keep checking on it every once and now and this was the first recent news I came across since around May.