This is the third article in my series of articles about volcanoes. You are welcome to read the first one, which is titled Volcanoes - Hell or Blessing? and a second one, which is titled Volcanoes in Art and Science.

Nowadays people are concerned with global warming and climate change. Many of them see the cause in human activity on the planet, and try to reduce human influence on the nature. Obviously these actions will benefit human kind and our nature, but I doubt that humans can in any way influence the global changes on our planet, which most likely occur as a result of nature laws and mighty forces we can’t comprehend. To make this point more clear I will show an example. It is common knowledge nowadays that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide into atmosphere results in global warming through greenhouse effect. But if you compare industrial emissions to volcano eruption, many times more of carbon dioxide emitted into atmosphere during the eruption.
There is also a clear connection between volcanic activity and earthquakes. In case of Pompeii, it had a major earthquake twenty years before the Vesuvius eruption. Archeological excavations show that not all the houses were fully restored in the period between the earthquake and eruption. Some of the excavated houses show signs of earthquake destruction.
One can judge the power of volcanoes from volcanic island Krakatau, which is located in the Sunda Strait between Java and Sumatra in Indonesia. Krakatau’s best know eruption was in August 1883. And now please take a close look at the following numbers. As a result of this eruption three islands in the area underwent global changes - the relief, depth of the sea at the coastline and the coastline shape were changed. Emissions of gas, ashes and pumice reached the height of up to 80 kilometers (50 miles)! Ashes covered area of 750,000 square kilometers (272,202 square miles). In radius between 20 to 40 kilometers (12-25 miles) the thickness of erupted matter was up to 40 meters (131 feet). The ocean waves (tsunamis), which resulted from the eruption, reached heights of up to 30 meters (100 feet). The population of two islands was totally destroyed.
Official reports show that in eruption 40,000 people died. Tsunamis created by the eruption circled the whole planet, and the roar of eruption was heard several thousand kilometers away from the volcano. Airwave caused by the eruption has circled earth three times. Dust rains have reached Europe.
I showed all these examples here so that you could feel the power of volcanoes and imagine the obstacles in the way of volcanologists, whom I’d like to mention.
Volcanologists deserve respect for many reasons – they are much like soldiers in line of fire. Their experience and courage help in predicting of eruptions and thus defense of populations living nearby. Photographers often accompany volcanologists. Thanks to them we can observe the volcanoes in action and feel the might of nature forces. One of the best photographers to capture the intense moments of volcanic eruptions is Vadim Gippenreiter. His photos will probably tell you much more about volcanoes than this article.

The next article in Volcano Series is written by a guest writer Ira. It describes New Zealand’s place in the history of volcanoes. The article is titled New Zealand - One big volcano?