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Erik Klemetti

Volcanologist, Denison University

I write the Eruptions blog on Big Think.  I've been mesmerized with volcanoes (and geology) all my life. It helps that part of my family comes from the shadow of Nevado del Ruiz in Colombia, where I could see first hand the deadly effects of volcanic eruptions. Since then, I've taken a bit of a winding path to become a volcanologist. I started as a history major at Williams College, almost went into radio, but ended up migrating to geology, including an undergraduate thesis on Vinalhaven Island, Maine. I followed this up by changing coast to get my Ph.D. from Oregon State University. Then I ran a MC-ICP-MS lab at University of Washington for a spell (and wrote for an indie rock website). I spent three years as a postdoctoral scholar at University of California - Davis studying the inner workings of magmatic systems. I am now an assistant professor at Denison University and have projects in New Zealand, Chile and Oregon.

I am fascinated by volcanoes, their eruptions and how those eruptions interact with the people who live around the volcanoes. I started this blog after getting frustrated with the news reports of volcanic eruptions. Most of them get the information wrong and/or are just sensationalistic. I will try to summarize eruptions as they occur, translate some of the volcanic processes that are happening and comment on the reports themselves.

And no matter what people tell you, I definitely do not have a cat named Tephra. (OK, I do).

You can find out more about my research by visiting my website. If you have any comments, questions or information, feel free to contact me at eruptionsblog at gmail dot com.

Guest Thinkers
Redoubt Returns?
Don’t look now, but Redoubt might be trying to make a late year comeback, as AVO raised the alert status back to Yellow for the first time in months.
Guest Thinkers
Mayon Update for 12/28/2009
Despite a brief “lull”, the danger posed by Mayon in the Philippines is still very real – which isn’t stopping residents and even tourists from braving the evacuation zones.
Guest Thinkers
Plumes a-poppin’!
A number of nice images of volcanic plumes have been posted by the NASA Earth Observatory crew – along with some terrestrial images of the plume from Soufriere Hills.