Author Archives: John A. Stevenson

I’ve made an iPython Notebook that explains how to use lognormal distributions in Python/SciPy.  Python is a free and open source programming language that is becoming increasingly popular with scientists as a replacement for Matlab or IDL.  I hope that … Continue reading →

The panorama above shows the volcanoes of Southern Iceland highlighted by early Autumn snows.  Click the image for a full size version.  It was taken near the town of Hella.  From left to right, they are Hekla, Torfajökull, Tindfjallajökull, Katla … Continue reading →

I have a special volcano suit. It isn’t a silvery heatproof number for sampling red-hot lava, though. It’s a fleece-lined boiler suit. I bought it for fieldwork in Iceland and it works very well.  This post describes the suit, then … Continue reading →

The 2011 Grímsvötn eruption was the biggest explosive Icelandic eruption since Katla 1918*, producing twice as much material as Eyjafjallajökull 2010 in around one tenth of the time.  During and after the eruption, scientists measured the effects that it had … Continue reading →

This post is a taste of (not so) slackademia.  It shows how much work is involved in preparing the funding application for a NERC Standard Grant.  It also includes a LaTeX template for anyone writing their own.  It can be … Continue reading →

I was quoted on the Daily Telegraph website at the weekend, in an article about the number of travel insurance companies whose policies cover volcanic ash.  I’d answered some questions from the author by email, then he told me when … Continue reading →

Here are some of my highlights from last week’s European Geoscience Union conference.  These were presentations dirty hailstones formed in subglacial volcanic eruptions, a workshop on social media and blogging in geosciences, a splinter meeting on open source software in … Continue reading →

This week is the second anniversary of volcan01010.  With this post, I want to give an overview of what I have been writing about over the past year.  If you are new to the blog, then it should give you … Continue reading →

The UK National Environment Research Council’s Airborne Research and Survey Facility (NERC ARSF) is an aircraft used for scientific research. The on-board instruments include LiDAR, high resolution camera, and multispectral and hyperspectral infrared scanners.  The aim of this post is … Continue reading →