GoKawiil
Tech News
Researchers at the US Geological Survey report detailed observations of lava fountaining episodes at Hawaii's Kilauea volcano, gathered using 35 monitoring stations tracking seismic activity, gas emissions, and thermal imagery. The study notes that since a 2018 eruption drained a reservoir, inflation rates accelerated from 22 cm a year starting in 2019 to 57 cm a year by 2023, spreading to a nearby caldera.
The article revisits the 1991 Pinatubo eruption, when scientists deployed instruments that detected volcanic unrest and issued an evacuation order shortly before a massive explosion killed over 800 people, saving hundreds of thousands more. It notes that despite this success, the forecast was largely an educated guess rather than a precise prediction, and that volcanology has since improved through better instrumentation and machine learning.
A massive ice and rock collapse in the mountains along the Nepal-Tibet border unleashed a torrent of mud, rock and water down the Bhotekoshi River on Wednesday, killing around 350 people with more than 1,000 still missing. The US Geological Survey confirmed the landslide itself generated a 5.2-magnitude seismic signal, ruling out earlier theories that an earthquake or a glacial lake burst had caused the disaster.