Deadliness – 1. Yasur is a nuisance, sometimes dropping ash across parts of the island of Tanna, or out to sea, but in its current state of activity it is only dangerous to people who venture too close to the crater. Height– 3850 m. Colima is major peak, but is overshadowed by its neighbour, the extinct Nevado de Colima, which rises to 4340 m. Yasur is one of the most charismatic volcanoes in the world, with a history of repeated strombolian and vulcanian explosions that have been continuing for centuries. Unpredictability– 7. Its current state of almost continuous activity means that Yasur’s unpredictability is quite low.

Wow factor– 93. Mayon is a classically conical volcano, which stands proud from the countryside around.

Deadliness – 2. The May 1980 eruption had a considerable impact across the region, but the death toll (officially, 57) was relatively low, given the scale of the eruption. Height – 5,321m This is one of our tallest Top Trumps Volcanoes, in climbing towards the top you pass through several climate zones. Deadliness. An Index from 0 to 1000 ( Krakatau in Indonesia) Essentially a measure of fatalities in the past. We have quite deliberately NOT used direct casualties in this figure. However, we created the index from the total number of historical fatalities directly attributed to volcanic activity. For some volcanoes this involves more than one fatal eruption (for example, Merapi in Indonesia, Mayon in the Phillipines). This explains why Yellowstone does not score well in this category. It has not had any historical fatalities. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau caused over 35,000 deaths. Although the 1815 eruption of Tambora killed many more people, a large majority of these were from secondary starvation from the devastated agricultural production in the region.

Probably the most exciting phase of this project is yet to come, however - seeing some interesting projects take place using our funds that might otherwise never happened. We have started the ball rolling with a pilot project in the region where STREVA is working: a community project on the slopes of Cotopaxi (Ecuador) which was designed to get school children talking to their elders about memories of past volcanic activity. The children’s notes and drawings will be made into a book and sold to tourists to raise funds for equipment for their school. And that is what it was all about in the first place! Vesuvius– one of the best known volcanoes in the world – has been dormant since its last eruption in 1944. It looms over the sprawling city of Naples, in central Italy, and is watched closely by scientists from the Osservatorio Vesuviano– the world’s oldest volcano observatory. Deadliness – 679. The 1985 eruption was the deadliest in living memory, so Nevado Del Ruiz’s score reflects this tragedyView of the northern side of Ngauruhoe, New Zealand. Wikimedia commons: By The Bearded Man (Own work) [ CC-BY-SA-3.0]

Mount Fuji seen from Kinegawa, a village on the far east side of Edo. Colour woodcut by Hiroshige, 1852. Colima, or more properly Volcán de Colima, or Volcán de Fuego, is the active vent of a large twin-peaked volcanic complex in western Mexico. Colima has been in an elevated state of activity – with pulses of lava dome growth within the summit crater, occasional lava flows spilling out of the summit crater, and frequent explosions, since the late 1990’s. These eruptions (1997-2011, 2013-17 and 2019 are interspersed with periods of relative calm. Last known eruption: Erebus has an active lava lake, which has occasional explosions. So it is one of those volcanoes classified as in continuing eruption.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. Explosivity (Volcanic Explosivity Index) – 5. The AD 79 eruption of Vesuvius is the largest known explosive eruption of the volcano of the past 2000 years, and this was an event with an explosivity of 5. There was a violent eruption in December 1631, which was also rated as an explosivity of 5. We wanted to make sure that the volcanoes we chose were representative of the different styles of eruption, from ones that ooze lava, to very explosive ones. We also wanted to include volcanoes from many different countries, so we’ve included volcanoes from as far north as Iceland, and as far south as Antarctica. We just had to include some of the most famous volcanoes, such as Yellowstone and Vesuvius, but we’ve also popped in a few unusual friends, such as Erebus (Antarctica) and Villarrica (from Chile). We hope you’ll love finding out about our volcanoes as much as we did choosing them!

Unpredictability– 18. All of the historical eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull seem to have been relatively small, so the unpredictability score is low. Devastation Potential– 231. Erebus is a large volcano, quite close to McMurdo sound, and one of the largest scientific research stations in Antarctica. Although it has only ever been seen to have minor eruptions, it has certainly had larger eruptions in the past.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 a stratovolcano, and one of four volcanoes on Ross island; the others being called Mts. Terror, Bird and Terra Nova. Erebus is not associated with a tectonic plate boundary – instead, it is an intra-plate volcano that lies in a rift, where the Earth’s crust has been thinned by slowly being stretched. It is one of several volcanoes in West Antarctica that are likely to be fed from a deep-seated hot upwelling, or plume, inside the Earth. Geologically, the erupted products – alkali rich lavas called phonolites – are similar to those erupted at Mt Kilimanjaro, in Tanzania. STREVA is working in the Caribbean, Ecuador and Colombia on both identifying the drivers of risk and understanding eruptive behaviour with our local project partners ( http://streva.ac.uk/our-outputs/researchers). We have produced films in St. Vincent and Colombia that provide documentary records of experiences of past activity. You can see them here: https://www.youtube.com/user/STREVAProject . We are currently working to understand how these films might help these communities to better prepare for a future eruption. Finding more information about Volcanoes Top Trumps Deadliness – 190. Past eruptions of Vesuvius have certainly been destructive, and have led to significant casualties. A repeat of even a moderate-scale explosive eruption, like that of 1631, could be highly damaging to the modern city. We have produced the numbers and indexes used in Top Trumps from the real data associated with their activity.