Things that go BOOM! and SHAKE!

It turns out there are volcanoes in Vanuatu. Aside from the part where the entire country is made up of volcanoes, I mean there are active volcanoes. According to one source I found,* of the 13 main islands, 9 of them have active volcanoes.

The Yasur Volcano on Tanna Island in Tafea Province seems to be the major fireworks. It has been creating some amount of explosions for at least 800 years and erupts often enough that there are tours.

With the volcanoes come earthquakes, at least that has been my limited understanding of geo-things so far. So, yes, there are earthquakes. There was one on Tuesday, August 10th that registered as a 7.3. Apparently it even generated a small tsunami (“only” 9′ waves) but didn’t do any lasting damage.** Since then, there have been 5 others which, I think, are being considered aftershocks. All of them were between 4.6 and 5.3 degrees of magnitude.^

I’m still looking for more information on the earthquakes, particularly the recent ones, and how frequent they are as well as more info on the volcanoes. This was just cool, so I thought I’d share.

I’ve never been in an earthquake or a tsunami. Here comes more adventures. This is the Ring of Fire, I do expect to feel some of the effects. Hopefully, the mild earth shaking ones, not the hot and burning kind.

*http://volcano.oregonstate.edu/vwdocs/volc_images/australia/vanuatu/vanuatu.html
** http://law.rightpundits.com/?p=2094
^ http://earthquake.usgs.gov/earthquakes/recenteqsww/Maps/10/170_-15.php

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