Lava and ash aren’t the only threats from volcanoes

The eruptions of Guatemala’s Fuego volcano and Hawaii’s Kilauea volcano this spring offer reminders that lava, ash, and size don’t fully explain why volcanoes are so dangerous.

Dozens of people have died and thousands more have been evacuated in the area around Fuego as a result of its June 3 eruption. Like Kilauea, which, in early May 2018, began a violent episode in an eruption that has carried on for nearly 35 years, Fuego was hardly at rest before this latest explosion. It often spews lava and ash several times in a year and can have many small eruptions in a single day.

But this time the Fuego eruption was different. Damage came fast and forcefully in a chaotic mixture of rock, gas, and ash known as a pyroclastic flow—creating scenes of destruction bearing little resemblance to the images of creeping lava that have emerged from Kilauea.

The contrast reminds us that the ways in which volcanoes become dangerous can be as varied as the places and communities where they rumble to life.

Stanford University geologists Gail Mahood and Don Lowe, professors of geological sciences, discuss the mysteries that remain for scientists about what and how researchers can learn from Fuego and other volcanoes—as well as some of the science behind volcanic threats.

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