Volcano World Cup – Group C

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

Brazil – 2/0/0/0

The island of Trindade off the coast of Brazil. Credit: Simone Marinho / Wikimedia Commons.

Brazil has some amazing geology … but active volcanoes are not part of it. Don’t get me wrong, Brazil has great volcanic legacy including the Paraná flood basalt province that formed 136 to 132 million years ago. Cool thing about these flood basalt is that they have a matching pair in Namibia and Angola showing how South America and Africa were linked before the South Atlantic Ocean started to form. The most recent volcanism is in that South Atlantic Basin but instead of a flood basalt it is at ocean islands. The volcanoes of Trindade and Martim Vaz erupted starting about 3.9 million years ago and may have been active as recently as 250,000 years ago.

Morocco – 7/0/0/0

The Oujda Volcanic Field in northern Morocco seen from Sentinel-2. Yes, it is really there, in the middle. You can make out a few lava flows if you’re clever. It likely hasn’t erupted for over 500,000 years. Credit: ESA

Most of the “recent” volcanism in Morocco is located in the middle of the Atlas Mountains. However, it seems like most activity in this area ceased more than half a million years ago. For volcanoes, that doesn’t necessarily mean they are “extinct” but it does means that the volcanic potential is low. The Azrou volcanic field may have erupted as recently as 600,000 years ago and there are hints that more recent activity could have happened. In an arid environment like northern Morocco, looks can be deceiving when it comes to guessing how young a volcanic feature might be. We’ll be back in the Northwestern Africa Volcanic Province later on.

Haiti – 2/0/0/0

Morne la Vigie, a small scoria cone in Haiti. The reddish lavas are apparent as are two eroded craters at the summit. Credit: Sentinel-2/ESA.

The Caribbean region does have many active volcanoes including the likes of Pelee, Soufriere Hills, La Soufriere and more. However, most of these are in the eastern part of the basin where the North American Plate is diving under the Caribbean Plate making the Lesser Antilles arc. Haiti is much further west and north of this region along the plate boundary that is much more likely to produce big earthquakes than volcanism. However, Haiti does have at least a couple (Morne la Vigie and Thomazeau) that may have erupted as recently as a million years ago.

Scotland – 0/0/0/0

Arthur’s Seat above Edinburgh, an ancient core of a volcano. Credit: Benoît Rivard, Flickr.

Scotland has no active volcanoes. This should come as a shock to absolutely no one. However, there are a lot of volcanic rocks in Scotland, they are just old. The most famous is Arthur’s Seat near Edinburgh, but the lavas from this remnant of a volcano were dated to ~341-335 million years ago. Not exactly recent, but Arthur’s Seat and other nearby volcanic relics helped birth modern geology when the likes of James Hutton examined these rocks. Hey, at least the Scots appreciate a good volcano when they see it.

ERUPTIONS