A volcanologist, or volcano scientist, is a geologist who focuses on understanding the formation and eruptive activity of volcanoes. Volcanologists frequently visit volcanoes, sometimes active ones, to observe and monitor volcanic eruptions, collect eruptive products including tephra, rock and lava samples. One major focus of inquiry in recent times is the prediction of eruptions to alleviate the impact on surrounding populations and monitor natural hazards associated with volcanic activity. Geologists who research volcanic materials that make up the solid Earth are referred to as igneous petrologists.
The Soufrière Hills is an active, complex stratovolcano with many lava domes forming its summit on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. After a long period of dormancy, the Soufrière Hills volcano became active in 1995 and continued to erupt through 2010. Its last eruption was in 2013. Its eruptions have rendered more than half of Montserrat uninhabitable, destroying the capital city, Plymouth, and causing widespread evacuations: about two-thirds of the population have left the island. Chances Peak in the Soufrière Hills was the highest summit on Montserrat until the mid-1990s, but it has since been eclipsed by various rising and falling volcanic domes during the recent volcanic activity.
Volcanic gases are gases given off by active volcanoes. These include gases trapped in cavities (vesicles) in volcanic rocks, dissolved or dissociated gases in magma and lava, or gases emanating from lava, from volcanic craters or vents. Volcanic gases can also be emitted through groundwater heated by volcanic action.
Sir Alexander Norman Halliday is a British geochemist and academic who is the Founding Dean Emeritus of the Columbia Climate School, and Former Director of the Earth Institute at Columbia University. He joined the Earth Institute in April 2018, after spending more than a decade at the Department of Earth Sciences at the University of Oxford, during which time he was dean of science and engineering. He is also a professor of Earth and Environmental Sciences at Columbia University.
Terry Ann Plank is an American geochemist, volcanologist and professor of earth science at Columbia College, Columbia University, and the Lamont Doherty Earth Observatory. She is a 2012 MacArthur Fellow and member of the National Academy of Sciences. Her most prominent work involves the crystal chemistry of lava minerals in order to determine magma ages and movement, giving clues to how quickly magma can surface as lava in volcanoes. Most notably, Plank is known for her work establishing a stronger link between the subduction of ocean sediments and volcanism at ocean arcs. Her current work can be seen at her website.
Plank states that her interest in volcanoes began when her Dartmouth professor took her and other students to Arenal volcano in Costa Rica. He had them sit and have lunch while on top of a slow-moving lava flow and while watching bright red goops of lava crack out from their black casings. "It was totally cool, how could you not like that?" Plank recalled the event to State of the Planet, an Earth Institute News source at Columbia University.
Janne Blichert-Toft is a geochemist, specializing in the use of isotopes with applications in understanding planetary mantle-crust evolution, as well as the chemical composition of matter in the universe. To further this research, Blichert-Toft has developed techniques for high-precision Isotope-ratio mass spectrometry measurements.
Katharine Venable Cashman is an American volcanologist, professor of volcanology at the University of Bristol and former Philip H. Knight Professor of Natural Science at the University of Oregon.
A multi-component gas analyzer system (Multi-GAS) is an instrument package used to take real-time high-resolution measurements of volcanic gases. A Multi-GAS package includes an infrared spectrometer for CO2, two electrochemical sensors for SO2 and H2S, and pressure–temperature–humidity sensors, all in a weatherproof box. The system can be used for individual surveys or set up as permanent stations connected to radio transmitters for transmission of data from remote locations. The instrument package is portable, and its operation and data analysis are simple enough to be conducted by non-specialists.
The Deep Earth Carbon Degassing (DECADE) project is an initiative to unite scientists around the world to make tangible advances towards quantifying the amount of carbon outgassed from the Earth's deep interior into the surface environment through naturally occurring processes. DECADE is an initiative within the Deep Carbon Observatory (DCO).
Dominique Weis is a Canadian scientist. She is a Canada Research Chair in the Geochemistry of the Earth's Mantle at the University of British Columbia.
Craig E. Manning is a professor of geology and geochemistry in the Department of Earth, Planetary, and Space Sciences at the University of California, Los Angeles, where he served as department chair between 2009 and 2012. Manning's research interests include water chemistry, thermodynamics, gas chemistry, geochemistry, igneous petrology, and metamorphic petrology.
Michael Roger Perfit is an American geologist who is currently an emeritus distinguished professor at the University of Florida.
Clive Oppenheimer is a British volcanologist, and Professor of Volcanology in the Department of Geography of the University of Cambridge.
Rajdeep Dasgupta is a professor of Earth, Environmental, and Planetary Sciences at Rice University. In his research, he studies the role of subsurface melting and magma on the origin and evolution of the Earth and other terrestrial planets.
Suzanne Mahlburg Kay is the William & Katherine Snee Professor of Geological Sciences at Cornell University. She studies the origin and evolution of the continental crust. She is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America, the American Geophysical Union and the Mineralogical Society of America.
Professor Jenni Barclay is the AXA Chair in Volcanology at the University of Bristol. She works on ways to mitigate volcanic risks, the interactions between rainfall and volcanic activity and the communication of volcanic hazards in the Caribbean. Barclay leads the NERC-ESRC funded Strengthening Resilience to Volcanic Hazards (STREVA) research project as well as a Leverhulme Trust programme looking at the volcanic history of the Ascension Islands.
Penelope King uses geochemistry and cosmochemistry to study planetary processes to better understand past and future planetary environments, and what this information may tells us about climate change. She is a professor at the Australian National University (ANU) in the Research School of Earth Sciences (RSES). King holds many awards, including Fellow of the American Geophysical Union and the Mineralogical Society of America in 2019, and winning the AGU Joanne Simpson Medal for Mid-Career Scientists the same year. She currently leads a research group examining surface and interior processes on planetary bodies.
Costanza Bonadonna is an Italian earth scientist who is a Full Professor of volcanology and geological risk at the University of Geneva. In 2020, she was named President-Elect of volcanology, geochemistry, and petrology at the American Geophysical Union (AGU).
Susan Loughlin MBE is a British volcanologist. She was Director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory from 2004-2006, and has been Head of Volcanology for the British Geological Survey since 2008.
Michelle Lynn Coombs is a geologist at the Alaska Volcano Observatory (AVO). She was the Scientist-in-Charge from 2016 to 2023. Coombs is a fellow of the Geological Society of America.
