Probably the most famous volcano of all, this is the mighty Mount Vesuvius. Here you can see the crater, which was captured on this day shrouded in clouds.

Way back in 79 AD, Vesuvius underwent a catastrophic eruption which buried the Roman city of Pompeii and its inhabitants under many feet of ash. The city was lost for 1,600 years before its accidental rediscovery, and is a now a major tourist destination - having already provided historians with valuable insight into the day-to-day lives of the Romans.

In Pompeii you can see the layout of the houses (which long ago lost their roofs), and the Basilica is also clearly visible, but here’s a good map which should help you identify loads more of Pompeii’s places (including the brothel!)

Vesuvius is the only volcano on the European mainland to have erupted within the last hundred years, and is today regarded as one of the most dangerous volcanoes in the world - not least because 3 million people live in close proximity. The last time it erupted was in 1944, when it destroyed all 88 planes in a U.S. B-25 bomber squadron, and its current dormant period is its longest in 500 years.

Check the wikipedia pages for Pompeii and Mount_Vesuvius for the full history.

Thanks to Tim, Mr.Tea, Jeff Burton, tony, Adam Orford, Ben, Kyle, Garrett, Garrett, Stephen Bates, Tijd, Joez, John Lewis, Clint, Mark Ross, Boniface, Serge Lyubomudrov, n.darcq, Rob B and the other 92 people who submitted this since I missed it out last year!

Last year we mentioned that Nicaragua has loads of volcanoes, but that they weren’t yet in high-resolution. Since then Nicaragua’s most active volcano Masaya, has received fantastic coverage of its multiple nested pit craters Masaya, Santiago, Nindiri and San Pedro (Wikipedia page).

In April this year, Mount Merapi began erupting for the first time since 2002. Indonesia’s most active volcano, it has erupted 68 times since 1548 - thoroughly earning its name, which means “Mountain of Fire”.

Just over a week ago 2 people were sadly killed by the volcano, and tragically some 5,000 people were killed and 200,000 were left homeless by an earthquake which struck to the south west on the 27th of May.

And unfortunately it seems that Merapi isn’t finished yet.

Thanks to Mathieu Villeneuve.

I can’t quite believe it myself, but despite what I said a year ago today, the 2nd (and now actually annual) Google Sightseeing Volcano Day is upon us!

Things have changed on Google Maps a lot since then (and even more so on Google Earth), including image updates for some of the volcanoes we featured last year, so that’s where we’ll start.

Mount St. Helens (Wikipedia page) isn’t yet in full high-res, but the imagery is much better than it was last year. Very cool when you zoom in a bit.

I was going to feature Krakatoa today by the way, but it seems that the images which people described in their submissions have been removed - it doesn’t feature in Google Earth either unfortunately, so it’ll just have to wait till next year :-/

More later!

Our final post of the 1st annual Google Sightseeing ‘Volcano Day’ is the simply incredible San Francisco volcanic field in northern Arizona.

The field covers 4700 square kilometres and contains 600 volcanoes less than 6 million years old, including the SP Crater, which is shown in our thumbnail. Check out the lava flow! It extends 4 miles northwards from the cone and is around 100 feet thick (make sure you zoom in, it’s in hi-res ).

Unfortunately the Sunset Crater is in low-resolution. It’s the area’s youngest volcano, having erupted lesss than 1,000 years ago, and it’s been a National Monument since 1930.

There’s a great page about the whole area on the U.S. Geological Survey site, and they also have a particularly good photo of the SP crater lava flow.

Many thanks to Jeff Alu, Matt Van Pelt, Jeff Burton, Eric, John King, Scott Jones, Kevin Wampler and Stephanie and to anyone else who I missed throughout these volcano posts. Thanks everyone!

This is Mount Rainier, outside Seattle, Washington (fairly close to the previously posted Mount Saint Helens). At 4,392 metres, Mount Rainier is the highest mountain volcano in the continental contiguous U.S., and although there is no imminent risk of eruption, geologists expect that the volcano will erupt again.

Update: Post edited to reflect that I was mostly wrong. Thanks to Steve Ransom and others

Mount Rainer the tallest mountain in the continental US? Sorry, no. That distinction is held by Denali (Mt. McKinley) in Alaska at 6,194 meters. If you’re just counting “contiguous” US, then the winner is Mt. Whitney in California at 4,418 meters. And if you meant volcano instead of mountain, then again Alaska wins with Mount Bona at 5,005 meters. But perhaps you meant tallest volcano in the contiguous US. Then Rainer wins. (There is some controversy about the difference between contiguous and continental, but every Alaskan knows the difference quite well.)

Thanks: Mark McKnight, gniv and daniel.

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

Here is an absolutely beautiful image of Popocatépetl, an active volcano near Mexico City, whose name means ‘Smoking Mountain’. It is an enormous volcano, standing at 5,452 metres, making it the second highest peak in Mexico after another volcano, Pico de Orizaba (5,610m).

There’s a good Aztec myth surrounding Popocatépetl too. From Wikipedia:

Popocatépetl was a warrior who loved Iztaccíhuatl. Iztaccíhuatl’s father sent him to war in Oaxaca, promising him his daughter as his wife if he returned (which Iztaccíhuatl father presumed he would not). Iztaccíhuatl was told her lover was dead and she died of grief. When he returned, he in turn died of grief over losing her. The gods covered them with snow and changed them into mountains. Iztaccíhuatl’s mountain was called “Sleeping Woman” because it bears a resemblance to a woman laying on her back. He became the volcano Popocatépetl, raining fire on Earth in blind rage at the loss of his beloved.

There’s also a map on Wikipedia of the major volcanoes of Mexico.

Thanks to Freddy M and Saul.