It’s difficult to monitor an underwater volcano like Kick-’em-Jenny and it’s also dangerous when that volcano is restless. This is why scientists use volcanic earthquakes to take the fire mountain’s “pulse” from a relatively safe distance.
Have you ever wondered how volcanologists do that? Here is a whole hour-plus 2013 webinar from IRIS Earthquake Science about it, nerdy but aimed at nonspecialists like us.
As we will see with this weekend’s Sunday Morning Volcano post, there are a lot of quiet but still active volcanoes in the Eastern Caribbean. Fortunately, these sleeping trouble-makers are bedecked with seismometers and other monitoring equipment so that volcanologists can give the local residents as much advance warning as possible when the volcano starts to wake up.
Featured image: Harmonic tremor at Mount St. Helens in March 1980. Source.
Flight To Wonder 