State of the Planet

News from the Columbia Climate School

volcanoes4

  • Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    What do the scientists and researchers around the Earth Institute do? In this second in a series, Einat Lev from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory talks about her work on volcanoes what she’d like people to know about it, and what inspired her to go into the field.

  • Walking in the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    Walking in the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    On a ledge just inside the lip of Chile’s Quizapu volcanic crater, Philipp Ruprecht was furiously digging a trench. Here at an elevation of 10,000 feet, a 1,000-foot plunge loomed just yards away, and wind was whipping dust off his shovel. But the volcanologist was excited. Ruprecht had just found this spot, topped with undisturbed…

  • Photo Essay: In the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    Photo Essay: In the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    High in the southern Andes, Chile’s Quizapu crater is one of South America’s most fearsome geologic features. In 1846, it was the source of one the continent’s largest historically recorded lava flows. In 1932, it produced one of the largest recorded volcanic blasts. The volcano is currently inactive, but could revive at any time. What…

  • From Top to Bottom: Scientists Map a New Island Volcano

    From Top to Bottom: Scientists Map a New Island Volcano

    One of the earth’s newest islands exploded into view from the bottom of the southwest Pacific Ocean in January 2015, and scientists sailing around the volcano this spring have created a detailed map of its topography.

  • Weber, Plank Elected to American Academy of Arts and Science

    Weber, Plank Elected to American Academy of Arts and Science

    Elke Weber, who studies how people make decisions and how they think about climate change, and Terry Plank, who probes deep into the Earth’s interior to study magma and how volcanoes erupt, are among the members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science this year.

  • Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Climate scientists teamed up with an econometrics expert to develop an innovative new method for picking out past volcanic eruptions in temperature reconstructions going back millennia and gauging their impact on the climate.

  • ‘Popping Rocks’ and Robots

    ‘Popping Rocks’ and Robots

    It turns out that studying lava flows at the bottom of the ocean uses many of the same methods as studying lava flows on other planets, writes Lamont’s Elise Rumpf.

  • Peering into Chile’s Quizapu Volcano

    Peering into Chile’s Quizapu Volcano

    In their quest to unravel the physical and chemical processes controlling volcanic eruptions, Einat Lev and colleagues headed to South America and the volcanoes of Chile.

  • Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Elise Rumpf’s lava flow simulations are yielding new details about the velocity of lava over different surfaces. They may also hold clues about the surfaces of other planets.

Photo of the Earth from space with the text "Lamont at AGU25" on top.

AGU25, the premier Earth and space science conference, takes place December 15-19, 2025 in New Orleans, Louisiana. This year’s theme—Where Science Connects Us—puts in focus how science depends on connection, from the lab to the field to the ballot box. Once again, Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Columbia Climate School scientists, experts, students, and educators are playing an active role, sharing our research and helping shape the future of our planet. #AGU25 Learn More

  • Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    Peering into Volcanoes: a Talk with Einat Lev

    What do the scientists and researchers around the Earth Institute do? In this second in a series, Einat Lev from the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory talks about her work on volcanoes what she’d like people to know about it, and what inspired her to go into the field.

  • Walking in the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    Walking in the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    On a ledge just inside the lip of Chile’s Quizapu volcanic crater, Philipp Ruprecht was furiously digging a trench. Here at an elevation of 10,000 feet, a 1,000-foot plunge loomed just yards away, and wind was whipping dust off his shovel. But the volcanologist was excited. Ruprecht had just found this spot, topped with undisturbed…

  • Photo Essay: In the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    Photo Essay: In the Shadow of a Great Volcano

    High in the southern Andes, Chile’s Quizapu crater is one of South America’s most fearsome geologic features. In 1846, it was the source of one the continent’s largest historically recorded lava flows. In 1932, it produced one of the largest recorded volcanic blasts. The volcano is currently inactive, but could revive at any time. What…

  • From Top to Bottom: Scientists Map a New Island Volcano

    From Top to Bottom: Scientists Map a New Island Volcano

    One of the earth’s newest islands exploded into view from the bottom of the southwest Pacific Ocean in January 2015, and scientists sailing around the volcano this spring have created a detailed map of its topography.

  • Weber, Plank Elected to American Academy of Arts and Science

    Weber, Plank Elected to American Academy of Arts and Science

    Elke Weber, who studies how people make decisions and how they think about climate change, and Terry Plank, who probes deep into the Earth’s interior to study magma and how volcanoes erupt, are among the members elected to the American Academy of Arts and Science this year.

  • Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Accounting for Volcanoes Using Tools of Economics

    Climate scientists teamed up with an econometrics expert to develop an innovative new method for picking out past volcanic eruptions in temperature reconstructions going back millennia and gauging their impact on the climate.

  • ‘Popping Rocks’ and Robots

    ‘Popping Rocks’ and Robots

    It turns out that studying lava flows at the bottom of the ocean uses many of the same methods as studying lava flows on other planets, writes Lamont’s Elise Rumpf.

  • Peering into Chile’s Quizapu Volcano

    Peering into Chile’s Quizapu Volcano

    In their quest to unravel the physical and chemical processes controlling volcanic eruptions, Einat Lev and colleagues headed to South America and the volcanoes of Chile.

  • Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Testing the Speed of Lava: What It Says about Escape Times & Mars

    Elise Rumpf’s lava flow simulations are yielding new details about the velocity of lava over different surfaces. They may also hold clues about the surfaces of other planets.