There have been penalties for those who looked the other way when Epstein was convicted of child sex offences and decided to maintain relationships with the financier — but not for the British ambassador to Washington, reveals SOLOMON HUGHES
Magma: hot stuff, coming through
A better understanding of the movement of magma at plate boundaries could help predict volcanic eruptions more accurately, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Scientist of the University of Iceland take measurements and samples standing on the ridge in front of the active part of the eruptive fissure of an active volcano in Grindavik on Iceland's Reykjanes Peninsula, December 19, 2023
Labour’s new Treasury unit will ‘challenge unnecessary regulation’ by forcing nominally independent bodies like Ofwat to bend to business demands — exactly what Iain Anderson’s corporate clients wanted, writes SOLOMON HUGHES
DR DYLAN MURPHY looks at a Big Brother Watch report which exposes the government as an enabler of DWP secret spying on benefit claimants
The EU faces a critical choice: will it remain in the shadow of an increasingly unreliable US ally, or will it forge its own path in a multilateral world where co-operation with China is essential, asks MARC VANDEPITTE as leaders meet for the EU-China Summit
A lot of discussion about how the left should currently organise – including debate on whether the Green Party is a useful vehicle for advance – runs the risk of refusing to engage with or learn from the reasons the left was defeated previously, argues KEVIN OVENDEN
For Egypt trade trumps the Israeli genocide of the Palestinians, but how long can the country’s ‘misleaders’ – and others in the region – continue their indifference against the popular will of their own people, asks ROGER McKENZIE
VOLCANOES are among the world's most hazardous natural phenomena, with the potential to cause massive destruction and significant loss of life when they erupt.
Mount Vesuvius, Mount St Helens, Mount Pinatubo and Eyjafjallajokull are some of the most famous examples, but active volcanoes are widespread across the globe. As of 2015, 8 per cent of the world’s population lived within 100km of a volcano that has had at least one significant eruption in recorded history.
Although monitoring efforts have improved since the days of Pompeii, many volcanoes remain understudied; meaning there is a lack of specific measurements available to help us predict the risk of an eruption.
The exact sequence of events leading up to a volcanic eruption is difficult to predict. However, any eruption is always preceded by the movement of magma (molten rock) through the Earth’s crust beneath the volcano. Monitoring a volcano focuses on trying to identify this movement and its speed.
There are different ways of doing this. As magma moves through the crust, it triggers earthquakes in the brittle rock around it. These earthquakes are often small and may not cause the ground above to shake, but seismic instruments placed near the volcano are able to record them.
More from this author
What’s behind the stubborn gender gap in Stem disciplines ask ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT in their column Science and Society
While politicians condemned fascist bombing of Spanish civilians in 1937, they ignored identical RAF tactics across the colonies. Today’s aerial warfare continues this pattern of applying different moral standards based on geography and race, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
The distinction between domestic and military drones is more theoretical than practical, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
Nature's self-reconstruction is both intriguing and beneficial and as such merits human protection, write ROX MIDDLETON, LIAM SHAW and MIRIAM GAUNTLETT
