Questions about Volcanologists or Volcanology

What is a volcanologist?

A volcanologist is a scientist that studies volcanoes. She (or he) might study old volcanic deposits, current eruptions, the insides of volcanoes, how lava moves, hazards, and/or how volcanoes grow.

Today, thanks to technology and the study of past eruptions, volcanologists have even been able to predict future eruptions. As a result, thousands of lives have been saved and numerous towns and villages have been protected from impending danger.

What does a volcanologist do?

Most of a volcanologists' work is done studying the remains of either dead or dormant volcanoes, or by monitoring volcanoes that are dormant, but may become active or "reawaken".

They also work in a laboratory checking samples and data.

The main job of a volcanologist is to understand how and why volcanoes erupt, how to predict eruptions, their impacts on the history of the Earth and how they may affect humans and their environment.

Volcanologists take rock samples from eruptions and analyse how old they are. They look at the types of rocks that make up a volcano. This gives information about the volcano's past and helps to predict an eruption.

Volcanologists also study the changes that happen to the ground before, during and after eruptions.

How good are volcanologists at predicting eruptions?

In the short term, like a year, it is impossible to predict when a volcano will erupt. For example, many volcanoes are currently dormant (they are completely at rest). It is impossible to say whether these volcanoes will become active and have an eruption next year, in the next five years, in the next decade, etc...

On the other hand, once a volcano has shown warning signs of becoming active, such as earthquakes and temperature changes volcanologists are very good at using these signs to predict when the volcano is going to erupt.