Day 1 of #vmsg2014, the @sheffielduni Duck and video of the Rubbish Bin Volcano

In a fantastic end to the first day of VMSG a "Rubbish Bin Volcano" was exploded, using liquid nitrogen similar to this previous example from the University of East Anglia. On the right I am ashamed to say is my poor poor attempt at painting the University of Sheffield name onto my duck. Needless to say, art, or hand-writing of any sort is not my strong point! Although I did manage to get some great glow-in-the-dark paint from Hobbycraft... Anyhow, below is the video of the volcano below, if you were there, you can relive the 'eruption', if you weren't here it is for the first time! It's certainly a great example and analogue for the rapid expansion of gas, ash (and ducks) at the beginning of an explosive eruption. You can also see the 'eruption' in thermal infrared here.

The rest of the day was devoted to posters/talks on intra-plate volcanism and rifting, with tributes to the late Barry Dawson. A broad mixture of talks today on topics ranging from Kimberlites, Feripicrites and the fantastic carbonatite lavas of Oldoinyo Lengai. It was great to hear Mike Widdowson talk about the recent 2013 Nature Geoscience paper on the Shatsky Rise Oceanic Plateau and the discovery that the Tamu Massif could be the largest shield volcano on Earth.

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