Page 365 - Volcano and Geothermal Tourism

Appendix 1

An Overview of Recent Volcanic

Activity Worldwide

In order to provide a general overview of recent eruptions. Anything beyond that list cannot be
volcanic activity as a framework for the material complete as not every country has kept written
in this book the following list was compiled from records of eruptions over time and in many
a number of sources. The baseline of previous regions volcanic activity would have gone
activity was drawn at the Holocene as this period unnoticed due to the remote location of some
is increasingly used as the timeframe in an active volcanoes. In fact, the combined activity of
apparently quiet volcano’s life where renewed all known and unknown volcanoes dating back
activity at some point in the future cannot be further than a few decades would result in much
excluded. Ninety-two (92) countries are listed in higher figures than those commonly available in
this table, many containing volcanoes with a academic texts or other public sources. Given the
potential for further eruptive activity. The ‘real’ number of eruptions over the past decade recorded
number of eruptions worldwide during the in this limited list (152) even a conservative
Holocene is in all likelihood much higher, increase to take this point into account would
however, with only the first column of the table suggest a staggering amount of volcanic activity
reflecting reasonably reliable records of volcanic during the Holocene.

Active: past Active: past Active: past Active: past 5000
Country or region decade century millennium years Active: Holocene
Antarctica 1 4 1 1 8
Argentina 1 3 3 – 15

Armenia – – – – 4
Ascension Island – – – – 1
Australia 3 1 1 8 5
Bolivia – 2 1 ? 23
Brazil – – – – 1

Cameroon 1 – – – 3
Cascades 1 1 8 9 10
Canada – – 5 4 49
Source: Patricia Erfurt-Cooper

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