Fun Fact– many people have speculated that Santorini might be the location of the lost city of Atlantis, a ficti0nal island first mentioned by Plato. Nevado del Ruiz is a very active volcano. Although activity died down again after the eruption in November 1985 it has not been completely quiet since then and has recently been having small ash-rich eruptions.

Devastation Potential– 684. Santorini is a large caldera volcano, with a well known history of large and damaging eruptions and, on geological timescales, this will probably happen again. Erebus is an enigma. It is the most southerly active volcano in the world, located on Ross island in Antarctica. For at least the past 40 years, there has been a lava lake bubbling in the summit crater, and feeding a continuous plume of gases across the Antarctic continent. Height.Height in metres above sea level ( Between 0 and 5897). This presented an interesting dilemma: do we take the measurement from sea level to the summit. or, in the case of volcanoes which are also islands, should we measure the height all the way from the sea floor? Ocean island volcanoes begin their lives as submarine volcanoes and eventually emerge from the sea and continue to grow by eruption. This means their true height could be much larger than those of continental volcanoes. Mauna Kea, in Hawaii for example rises 4,205 metres above sea level, but 10,200 metres from its ocean base to its summit – that’s nearly 2 kilometres taller than Mount Everest! To keep it simple, our statistics are actual heights, in metres abovesea level, taken from the Smithsonian Global Institution Global Volcanism Program. Nonetheless we’ve shown you the date of the last known eruption for the volcanoes we’ve featured in ‘ Our Volcanoes‘. Unpredictability– 34. For the moment, Ngauruhoe is frequently active, with many small eruptions in the past 100 years.Prepare to outsmart your opponents, discover new and exciting facts and duel your way to becoming the Top Trump Tongariro lies at the southern end of the Taupo Volcanic Zone, which is a chain of volcanoes forming above the zone where the Pacific tectonic plate is subducting beneath the Australian plate. The volcano is geologically young, and Ngauruhoe is one of the most active volcanoes in New Zealand. Last known eruption: March 2010 – June 2010. The eruption began with a small fire-fountaining eruption, from a fissure called Fimmvörðuháls about 5 kilometres east of the summit. The main explosive part of the eruption began, rather unexpectedly, in the summit on April 14th, and continued on and off for a few weeks. Wow factor– 66. This score might well have been higher before 1883.. but what remains of the volcano from that eruption is now mainly underwater.

Explosivity (Volcanic Explosivity Index) – 6. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau was one of the largest of the past 200 years. This map shows the location of the volcanoes we use in the game, relative to the world’s tectonic plates. We have also indicated the direction of motion of the plates. Where the volcano is near a zone where the two plates are moving towards one another this is because one is moving underneath the other. Melt is generated at depth and can rise to the surface to produce ‘subduction-related’ volcanoes. When the plates are moving apart the magma wells up into the crest, adding new material. The third type occurs when there is a zone of anomalous melting in the middle of the plates. These are called ‘intra-plate’ volcanoes, you may also see them referred to as ‘hot spot’ volcanoes. Height– 5,897m. Not much more needs to be said about that. The Top Trump for height in our collection. Fuji is one of the most iconic and easily recognised volcanoes in the world. It lies in Honshu island, Japan, a little south of Greater Tokyo: one of the largest urban centres in the world with a population of around 35 million.Unpredictability– 7. Its current state of almost continuous activity means that Yasur’s unpredictability is quite low. Deadliness:An index made from the recorded deaths as a direct result of that volcano’s activity ( 0 to 1000). This is an index that shows the relative number of people who have been killed directly by that volcano and recorded in the Global Volcanism Catatlogue of the Smithsonian Institution. This might seem to be an inappropriate category to include in a fun game but it is a reminder that there is a serious side to all this. Volcanoes are dangerous and one of the goals of research projects like STREVA is to reduce loss of life in volcanic eruptions.