Match 5: Scotland v. France

Scotland Volcano Fun Facts:

• Can you believe Scotland made it this far without a single potentially active volcano?
• Even if the volcanoes are very old in Scotland we can still learn about active volcanic processes. The Glen Coe Caldera is ~420 million years old but a study in 1998 was able to work out the piecemeal nature of its collapse.
• There are also some volcanoes that are Tertiary (66-1.8 million years ago), including the Mull volcano in the Inner Hebrides — even with preserved fissure vents!
• Of course, Scotland has also felt the impacts of eruptions in Iceland including climate changes that effected Scot Pine.

France Volcano Fun Facts:

• France’s colonial past means that it has volcanoes in lots of weird places. The volcanoes of the Crozet Islands south of Africa have multiple potentially active volcanoes. It is one of the many oceanic islands formed by mantle hotspots.
• Île de la Possession is one of those Crozet volcanoes. It is a shield volcano like Piton de la Fournaise but much less active. It likely erupted sometime in the last few hundred years.
• Uninhabited and really remote is St. Paul in the middle of the Indian Ocean. It is ~2,000 kilometers from the nearest major landmass (Antarctica).
• Throw in the volcanoes around Tahiti as well. Teahitia is a submarine volcano that has active hydrothermal zones and likely erupted in the Holocene.

Match 6: México vs. Panamá

México Volcano Fun Facts:

• The volcanoes of the Trans-Mexican Belt like Popocatépetl in the middle of the country may be the most famous but there are plenty across all parts of México.
• In Baja California and the Gulf of California are rift-related volcanoes like Jaraguay Volcanic Field and Isla Tortuga. They haven’t been active recently but likely have in the Holocene.
• One of my favorites is Socorro Island on Mathematicians Ridge — and it is an odd shield volcano that sits on a mid-ocean ridge. It last erupted in 1994.
• Then there is El Chichón in Chiapas. It’s 1982 eruption was one of the most explosive of the 20th century and likely released enough sulfur dioxide to cool the planet’s climate briefly.

Panamá Volcano Fun Facts:

• Although it hasn’t likely erupted in half a million years, Tisingal is impressive with a collapse caldera and multiple lava domes.
• Due to its proximity to the Panama Canal Zone, the volcanic hazards of Barú have been mapped and assessed by the USGS. Although it hasn’t erupted for centuries, an earthquake swarm in 2006 supports its potentially active classification.
• Barú produced a massive landslide from a collapse about 9,000 years ago. The debris made it to the Pacific Ocean — a distance of ~50 kilometers!
• Not to be outdone, El Valle had pyroclastic flows about 34,000 years that also reached the ocean, 25 kilometers away.

Match 7: Spain v. USA

Spain Volcano Fun Facts:

• The 2011-12 eruption of El Hierro in the Canary Islands was surprising for a number of reasons but the “coconuts” caused by lava melting carbonate sediments might have been the weirdest feature.
• Although the chances are very low, it didn’t stop the production of a TV miniseries about a potential tsunami caused by a collapse of La Palma in the Canaries. It also mixed in events from the 2021 eruption at La Palma.
• Tenerife might be the most picturesque of the Canary Islands with Teide  towering above the rest of the island. The caldera of Tenerife is partially filled by Teide.
• Eruptions on Lanzarote from 1730-36 covered 200 square kilometers of the island from a series of fissure vents that opened. Multiple settlements on the island were destroyed in the process.

USA Volcano Fun Facts:

• I’ve talked about how quiet the Cascade Range is compared to other volcanic arcs. The most recent eruption (Mount St. Helens) started over 20 years ago!
• That being said, Kīlauea made up for its Cascade brethen with constant eruption from 1983 to 2018 — 35 years!
• The US is also home to the only active continental hotspot volcano: Yellowstone. Sure, it hasn’t erupted in tens of thousands of years but it did produce 3 of the largest eruptions on the planet over the last few million years.
• In fact, the largest known explosive eruption happened within what is now the USA. The Fish Canyon Tuff is over 5,000 cubic kilometers of volcanic deposits that erupted from the La Garita caldera in Colorado about 28 million years ago.

Match 8: Canada v. DR Congo

Canada Volcano Fun Facts:

• I’ve always been fond of the idea that Garibaldi was partially built on a glacier a and collapsed with that glacier melted.
• Some of the volcanoes in Canada likely formed mostly under glaciers — something called a “tuya”. Hoodoo Mountain has the typically flat-topped shape of such a volcano.
• Nazko Cone is a volcanic edifice in central British Columbia that was built on top of glacier deposits from the last Ice Age. The last activity there was about 7,200 years ago.
• Canada also has a volcano that is ~2 kilometer below the surface of the Pacific Ocean. The Endeavour Segment is just north of the Juan de Fuca mid-ocean ridge. Earthquake swarms and young looking lavas support that there are indeed eruptions along this small mid-ocean ridge.

DR Congo Volcano Fun Facts:

• The Holocene volcanoes in the Democratic Republic of the Congo are part of the Albertine Rift Volcanic Province that is the western arm of the East African Rift system. Lake Victoria lies between the Albertine Rift Volcanic Province and the rest of the Rift system.
• There are some older volcanoes in DR Congo including the eroded shield volcano of Mikeno (last eruption ~500,000 years ago) near Kirisimbi.
• There is also a 33 kilometer long volcanic field with over 50 vents to the south of Lake Kivu called the Tshibinda Volcanic Field. It may have erupted in the last million years.
• Nyiragongo is park of the Virunga National Park. This makes it one of the big tourist attractions in DR Congo when combined with the gorillas that live on its slopes as well.