News from Afar: My date with a volcano
A geologist describes how a plume of gas detected on Monday by a Nasa satellite brought him to one of the most remote regions on Earth to investigate a volcanic eruption I was sat at my desk in Oxford on Monday evening, half an eye on the tennis as Andy Murray battled to reach the Wimbledon quarter final, when an email alert popped up at the bottom of my screen: "Large sulphur dioxide cloud detected by satellite over north Africa; potential source - a volcanic eruption?" It was from Dr Tim Wright, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds and the leader of a research group investigating seismic and volcanic activity in the remote Afar region of Ethiopia, where two tectonic plates are being ripped apart. The plume of gas had been detected by a Nasa satellite. Although we have no other information yet on...
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