Could macro-scale chemical engineering be used to stop a volcanic lava flow in its tracks and save potentially thousands of lives and homes when the next eruption occurs? That's the question R.D. Schuiling of Geochem Research BV, based in The Netherlands, asks in the current issue of the Inderscience Publication, International Journal of Global Environmental Issues.

Chile’s Chaiten Volcano is shown spewing ash and smoke (centre left of image) into the air for hundreds of km over Argentina’s Patagonia Plateau in this Envisat image acquired on 5 May 2008.

The Chaiten volcano now erupting in southern Chile is one of 200 to 300 volcanoes in the "Andean Arc" region of Chile, Peru, Ecuador and Columbia considered active by volcanologists, some of which lie in much more densely populated areas, said a University of Colorado at Boulder geologist who has studied Chaiten.

Explosive eruptions and noxious gas emissions at Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii this week have prompted scientists to work around the clock to understand what will happen next and how to keep the public out of harm’s way.

When Mt. Pinatubo erupted in the Philippines, in June of 1991, it blasted enough gas and dust into the air to block some of the sunlight in the atmosphere, causing the Earth’s global climate to cool for a few years.

Did you know that there are extinct volcanoes near Bristol? A trip to visit them at Sand Point, Weston-Super-Mare, will be led by Professor Steve Sparks on 16 March.

Most of the Earth’s listed active volcanoes are located at the borders between two tectonic plates, where upsurge of magma from the mantle is facilitated. When these magmatic uprisings occur at a subduction zone, where one tectonic plate plunges under another, they give rise to volcanic massifs such as the Andes cordillera. Other volcanic chains are formed along oceanic ridges, submarine regions of ocean-floor extension.

Theoretical physicists at the University of Chicago are suggesting how thin spouts of magma in the Earth's mantle can persist long enough to form hotspot volcanism of the type that might have created the Hawaiian Islands.

The Snake River Plain represents an 800 kilometer swath of volcanic centers stretching across southern Idaho to Wyoming (northwestern United States).

Through a detailed study of a volcanic ash sequence at Mt. Taranaki (a New Zealand volcano very similar to Mt. Hood in the Cascade ranges), Cronin et al. revealed that the volcano’s long-term eruption rate had varied over time in a regular, repeated pattern.

Determining the origin and rate of magma production in subduction zone volcanoes is essential to understanding the formation of continental crust and the recycling of subducted materials back into Earth’s mantle.

The central part of the Andes situated between southern Peru and Chile bears 50 active or potentially volcanoes, spread along a 1500 km-long arc. These volcanic structures mostly rise to between 4000 and 7000 m, are very remote with abrupt slopes and are often cloaked in snow.