Do you enjoy looking at burnt villages and/or deserted cities? How about being exposed to radiation?

If that’s your thing, you are in luck with new “grief tourism” vacation packages being offered in Indonesia (site of a horrifying volcano) and the Ukraine (home to Chernobyl). As Scientific American explains:

“Grief tourism,” however ghoulish it might seem, is far from uncommon. Similar trends were seen in Haiti, devastated by a powerful earthquake in January, as well as in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina.

The trend isn’t exactly a new one; tourists have been swarming historical disaster sites, like the crumbling Pompei ruins, for decades. Now, tourism groups are encouraging visitors to travel into more recent disaster zones, like the Indonesian city of Yogyakarta, where the Mount Merapi volcanic eruptions this fall killed more than 350 people and sent nearly 400,000 to refugee camps.

(more…)

Behold, the West Mata ocean volcano eruption:

Over 50 hours (!) of hi-def footage was captured of this western Pacific ocean volcano, which is 1,200 meters underwater, by a remotely operated vehicle (ROV)—named Jason—from the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. The footage was unveiled recently at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco.

Related Content:
Discoblog: How to Date an Ancient Volcanic Eruption: Step 1, Use Fish Sauce
Discoblog: Mining Mistake May Have Set Off Massive Mud Eruption
Discoblog: The Answer to Oil Prices? XXXTreme Energy!

Video: NSF & NOAA via YouTube / djxatlanta

Ancient Romans loved their food smothered in a smelly, sweet and sour sauce, called garum, made from fermented fish. It was the ketchup of their time. Pompeii’s most famous garum maker, Aulus Umbricius Scaurus, was just starting a new batch when Mount Vesuvius blew its top and buried the city under hot ashes. Nearly 2000 years later, Italian researchers studying the site unearthed several jars of sauce-in-the-making and have used the contents to confirm the date of the deadly volcanic eruption.

The only eye-witness account of the eruption, a letter written by Pliny the Younger, puts the date at August 24, AD 79. This date is disputed because other artifacts, such as coins that seem to commemorate September events or fall produce sold at the market, suggest the eruption may have occurred as late as October.

But here’s the twist:

(more…)