Here is a great shot of Miyakejima Satsuma-Iwojima Island off the coast of Japan. It is volcanic in origin and the big volcano is Mount Oyama. This has erupted several times in recent history. A lava flow in 1940 killed 11 people, and other eruptions occurred in 1962 and 1983. In 2000, Mount Oyama began another series of eruptions and the island had to be evacuated. The residents were only allowed to return permanently in February, 2005! (I suck)

Thanks seamus & Tomoya (for the corrections).

This is the small islet of Mont Saint Michel, just off the north coast of France. It is home to a Benedictine Abbey and steepled church, which were built between the 11th and 16th centuries, and was connected to the mainland via a thin natural land bridge. Before modernization the bridge was covered at high tide and revealed at low tide.

These days the land bridge has become a causeway, which has unfortunately contributed towards a general silting-up of the bay. To prevent the water from disappearing completely, there are plans afoot to replace the causeway with a bridge (Wikipedia page).

Thanks: Tony, Mark D, Jef Poskanzer, Jerome, Holly Helterhoff, Tim, ray hollis, Mathieu, David Patrick, Christophe Roudet, Patrick R, Marc, Gwen, Marc Armstrong and Gabriel.

This is the Soufriere Hills volcano on the Caribbean island of Montserrat. Although seismic shocks had been felt on 30 year intervals for most of the 20th Century, the volcano was still considered inactive. However it became active with devastating effect on July 18, 1995, eventually causing two thirds of the inhabitants to evacuate the island. Its eruptions have rendered most of the island uninhabitable, and yet people still continue to live there.

In the satellite image you can see where the abandoned capital city of Plymouth used to lie, buried underneath the grey area on the southwest of the island, and through the clouds you can also see the glowing red lava in the volcano’s crater. Scary stuff!

Thanks to Robert Sargant for this one

Larry pointed us towards this excellent little volcano island in the Pacific Ocean, roughly 400 miles southwest of the tip of Baja California Sur, Mexico. Great crater Larry, good work!

Unfortunately here’s no map data of any of the islands in this area. Can anyone work out where this is? Too late, I think I worked it out Looks like this is Barcena on the island of San Benedicto (one of the Revilligigedo Islands). Apparently Barcena was born on August 1, 1952 and it reached a height of 300 metres in only 12 days! By mid September of that year it had mostly ceased erupting. There’s a photo of it in action here.

It looks a bit like some sort of Bond-esque, super-evil Pacific hideaway doesn’t it?

The Hawaiian Islands are at the end of a chain of volcanoes that began to form more than 70 million years ago. Each Hawaiian island is made of at least one volcano, and the island of Hawai`i, the southernmost of the Hawaiian islands, consists of five volcanoes, and is the location of the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Here’s a look at three of the most interesting volcanoes on the island. I didn’t bother doing them all as unfortunately none of the island is in high-resolution yet

Mauna Kea is Hawaii’s tallest volcano at 4,205 meters. It’s so tall, that snow forms on it’s upper reaches each winter (several meters deep!) and the name itself means ‘White Mountain’. It hasn’t erupted for around 4,500 years however.

Mauna Loa is Earth’s largest volcano, and fittingly it’s name means ‘Long Mountain’. It covers more than half of Hawai`i and accounts for 85 percent of the land-mass of all the Hawaiian islands combined. It is also considered one of the world’s most active volcanoes having erupted 33 times since 1843, most recently in 1984. Mauna Loa is certain to erupt again, and is carefully monitored for signs of volcanic activity.

Kilauea is perhaps the most active volcano in the world, it’s been erupting continually since 1983! Perhaps this is where it gets it’s name, which translates to ’spewing’ or ‘much spreading’. Shown in our thumbnail is the cinder-and-spatter cone of Pu‘u‘Ō‘ō, which looks fantastic from up here with a plume of steam stretching southwards, and even huge areas of glowing orange lava!

There’s lots more fascinating information about all volcanoes on the island available at the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory website.

Many thanks to Alex, Gayle Olson, Fernando Gilbert, Mark Hardman, Luke Gibson, neil, Dakota, SlantyOD, Layla, Keith, Adam, Kirk, Jim McKeeth, JP, RPirolli, Kyoji, Jason, Eric, Clinton Neville, Nelson, Tony Tabor, Sam, Charles Sieg and Adam Crownoble.