Pompeii...

Most of you will know about Pompeii, which was destroyed by the eruption of Mt Vesuvius in 79AD. What you might not know, however, is that you can explore the ruins of Pompeii in Google Streetview... Click on the picture below!

More volcanoes...

Twitter (@geologynews) strikes again - 8 Hot Volcanic Eruptions from Wired Science is a collection of pretty impressive photos of volcanic eruptions including Mt St Helen's. My particular favourite is this satellite image (courtesy of the NASA Earth Observatory) of Mt Cleveland, in Alaska...

Volcano World and Montserrat

My Year 9 group will need to be having a look at the Volcano World website as part of their homework this week:

Well worth a look for everyone else as well though - information about volcanoes all over the world, details of current volcanic activity, photos, virtual volcano tours, games, etc.

Year 9 might also like to have a look at the website of the Montserrat Volcanic Observatory where there is detail of current volcanic activity on Montserrat, lots of excellent photos, and details of the new Hazard Level System.

Earth - The Power of the Planet

Hopefully, you will have just finished watching Earth - The Power of the Planet. Tonight's spectacular programme was the first of a new series on BBC2, and looked at volcanoes - "the most important force in the creation of the planet as we know it today"...

If you missed the programme, and didn't see Dr Iain Stewart abseiling into a lava lake, then it is repeated on Sunday at 6.oopm - make sure you are watching!! (You can also pre-order the DVD of the series from the BBC Shop... I wonder if Santa reads Geogtastic...)

An interesting "earthweek"...

Find out more about where the hottest and coldest temperatures were recorded this week... earthquakes in Japan, Greece, Turkey, Indonesia, the USA and New Zealand... volcanic eruptions in Columbia and Burma... El Nino storms in Peru and Bolivia... cyclones in the Indian Ocean... intoxicated deer in the Czech Republic... and "space junk" in Australia...

Mt St Helen's

Noel Jenkins (the Somerset geography teacher behind the great work on Montserrat that my Yr9 group did on Friday and the Trading Trainers game that Yr9 played in the last unit of work) pointed out this fantastic site with panoramas of a variety of places, including one from the top of Mt St Helen's.

For those of you who are still upset that I wouldn't play you "Old St. Helen" again on Friday, you can download it here!

You can also see what's happening at Mt St Helen's and a number of other volcanoes around the world via these webcams... (There might not be much to see, depending on the time you visit... remember it is nighttime in some of theses places when it's daytime here!)