Be sure to vote for Group B in the poll at the bottom!

Canada – 37/24/1/0

I think many people don’t believe that Canada has volcanoes. Not that it is a conspiracy of geologist but that Canada just isn’t a country that shouldn’t have volcanoes. Usually it is because folks forget that British Columbia is still on the west coast of North America … and that means active tectonics like subduction. The Cascade Range does reach all the way into southern British Columbia and a smattering of other volcanoes show up related to the complex interactions between the Pacific and North American Plates. If you had to pick a captain for Canadian volcanoes it would likely be Mount Meager, a composite volcano in BC that had a VEI 5 (i.e., Mount St. Helens 1980 sized) eruption in ~410 BCE.

Bosnia & Herzegovina – 0/0/0/0

I’m going to admit that Group B is a tough one for volcanoes. After Canada the grand total of volcanoes that have erupted in any of the three other countries over the 2.5 million years is zero. None. Zilch. So, what else can I say about the volcanic histories? Well, for Bosnia & Herzegovina, the most recent volcanism I can find is the Maglaj Volcanics that include dacite eruptions in the Oligocene (33.9 to 23 million years ago). They are weird as the dacite (relatively high silica content) occur in rocks that are associated with oceanic crust that shouldn’t have dacite. However, this is all related to collisional tectonics so maybe we are just seeing a sliver of volcanism that formed when this ancient ocean basin was closing.

Qatar – 0/0/0/0

Like Bosnia-Herzegovina, there isn’t much in the way of anything close to modern volcanism in Qatar. The country only covers about 11,000 square kilometers, making it slightly smaller than Connecticut, so we don’t have a lot of territory with which to work. I ran into a few papers that got into the geochemistry of volcanic rocks on Halul Island, a remote outpost that mostly serves as a oil storage and transfer station. These rocks are part of the Hormuz Complex and may be remnants of volcanism that occurred during the Ediacaran, a geologic period that lasted from (wait for it) ~ 635 to 539 million years ago. That’s a long time!

Switzerland – 0/0/0/0

The Swiss are not known for their volcanoes. Now, we don’t need to go back as far as Qatar to find evidence of past volcanism. However, we still likely need to look back to over 260 million years ago. This volcanism was likely linked to the closing of the ancient Tethys Ocean. Listen, that is all I got. If this was the Metamorphic World Cup then maybe Switzerland would look better.