You have to see it to believe it

Saw this today in Edinburgh :

close up :

 

Doesn't do a lot for the reputation of Scotland's eating habits ...

Satellite eye on the Earth : Maldives

A beautiful satellite photo of one of my favourite countries in the world : the Maldives.

"On a relatively clear day, the atolls and islands of the Maldives glow like a necklace of speckled jade beads floating on the deep blue waters of the northern Indian Ocean. The Maldives are an island nation made up of a chain of 1,192 small coral islands grouped into 26 clusters of atolls. It has a population of about 330,000. The capital and largest city is Male, with a population of about 80,000. The coral archipelago stretches in a north-south chain for almost 560 miles south-west of India, and sits upon a vast undersea mountain range. Arguably the lowest-lying country in the world, the average elevation is just 1m above sea level". The Guardian Satellite Eye. (links are mine)

Recent Piton de la Fournaise eruptions

Piton de la Fournaise's most recent eruption ended last month. The Fournaise is one of the world's most active volcanoes and below is a list of its recent eruptions (since 1998). 

Before the 1998 eruption (which lasted six months) there hadn't been one since 1992 however. Altogether there have been 300 recorded eruptions since the island was inhabited in the mid-17th century (and probably a few more that went unrecorded in my opinion).

Copyrighted photo by Katia and Maurice Krafft, 1977

Start Date: 2010 Oct 14 Stop Date: 2010 Dec 10

Start Date: 2009 Nov 5 Stop Date: 2010 Jan 12

Start Date: 2008 Sep 21 Stop Date: 2009 Feb 4

Start Date: 2006 Jul 20 Stop Date: 2007 May 1

Start Date: 2005 Oct 4 Stop Date: 2006 Jan 18

Start Date: 2005 Feb 17 Stop Date: 2005 Feb 26

Start Date: 2004 May 2 Stop Date: 2004 Oct 16

Start Date: 2003 May 30 Stop Date: 2004 Jan 10

Start Date: 2002 Nov 16 Stop Date: 2002 Dec 3

Start Date: 2002 Jan 5 Stop Date: 2002 Jan 16

Start Date: 2001 Jun 11 Stop Date: 2001 Jul 7

Start Date: 2001 Mar 27 Stop Date: 2001 Apr 4

Start Date: 2000 Jun 23 Stop Date: 2000 Nov 13

Start Date: 2000 Feb 14 Stop Date: 2000 Mar 4

Start Date: 1999 Jul 19 Stop Date: 1999 Oct 23

Start Date: 1998 Mar 9 Stop Date: 1998 Sep 20 (?)

Source : Global Volcanism Program, Smithsonian Institution which lists all known eruptions for the Fournaise.

See also Reunion Island Geological Information Center for up-to-the minute volcano information in English and live webcams.

Follow this link for my photos of the January 2002 eruption.