*************************************** From: Gerald Ernst <plumeman2000@xxxxxxxxxxx> *************************************** Greetings to all from Belgium ! IAVCEI elections are upon us; then at other times there are also AGU or GSA elections. Highly dedicated scientists are again proposing to share their experience to help take our science of volcanology forward. As you are considering how to cast your votes most effectively, I would like to pledge that you consider the case to help much more the development of volcanology in the developing world, and then make your own judgement as to who you think can also help those efforts best (please note I am not standing for election, ie. this pledge is a disinterested one). Indeed it seems to me that this matters at any time, whether or not one cares about IAVCEI/AGU/GSA elections. In the second half of the 20th century and thereafter, we can all recall how the science of volcanology has made immense progress first through careful and systematic observations (eg. by such individuals as George Walker), then mostly through theoretical modelling and laboratory experimentation coupled with field work but increasingly less so. It has become easy to overlook, however, that the radiation in our science was only possible thanks to the wealth of systematic field observations that had first been collected (by few individuals). Most recently, integrated monitoring techniques or integrated research and the increasing power of numerical computation, the advent of remote sensing, etc.., have all contributed to great advances. As theoretical understanding and modern techniques are advancing, there is now again a greater need for basic, careful and systematic field observations of a kind rarely carried out these days. The reasons why systematic field work is becoming increasingly rare are diverse and may include the preference of funding councils to fund high-technology driven science and the tendency to dismiss field work as a time-consuming, little-productive pursuit ? perhaps this is best debated in detail elsewhere. There has also been a tendency for funding councils to fund work where previous work has successfully been carried out, and this favours increasingly more specialised knowledge rather than brand- new knowledge that is potentially of a more radical nature. The result of all this is that the same 200-300 volcanoes are systematically revisited, monitored and studied so that we are not gaining some of the new knowledge that we could from studying the other 1200-1300 much more poorly- known, unknown or unmonitored volcanoes. One only has to look at Sumatra, Africa or Peru volcanoes to realise how much work there is to do on most volcanoes there, and how little of it has yet been carried out. Yet, we will go back to Mt Etna or some other volcano studied for many decades for the 100th time, despite the need for fundamental studies at these numerous other volcanoes. While I am not questioning the value of highly specialized studies at intensely studied volcanoes, I am asking myself why it is these other volcanoes are not receiving any attention. As scientists, are we no longer curious to explore the unknown and gather completely new knowledge ? Are we no longer prepared to take the risk to help local colleagues where no help has been at hand previously ? The overwhelming majority of active or dormant volcanoes, which could be hazardous, are located in the developing world. There, perhaps more than one thousand volcanoes are unstudied or little studied and most are not systematically monitored with integrated state-of-the-art methods. There is often a lack of resources locally, a lack of scientists trained or experienced in volcanology, a lack of library or suitable computer resources, a lack of funding to attend international workshops and conferences (or information is just not reaching there on funding possibilities), and a lack of funding for research or monitoring. There are some wonderful initiatives to try and help this situation but it does not go far enough. To be convinced, just consider how few (if any) scientists from the developing world outside of Latin America attended at the most excellent IAVCEI Conference in Pucon, Chile, despite the value of such conferences for those who could attend. One can only hope that more can be done to ensure that more scientists from the developing world can attend in Iceland at the IAVCEI 2008 General Assembly, for example. In the developing world, the general population has many more and more pressing challenges than volcanic hazards ? so that it is much harder there for local scientists to make a case or for local governments to focus local resources to change the situation. According to the UN, people are also, on average, twenty times more vulnerable to natural disasters in terms of GDP per head, so it does matter considerably more, especially that natural disasters can set development efforts back. I would like to pledge that while advancing theory, experiments and new technology for volcanology, that there is also a need to return to more basic, systematic observations such as those George Walker, for example, contributed. In particular, there is an urgent need to share our knowledge to identify to IAVCEI/GSA/AGU those scientists in developing countries dedicated to developing volcanology, and to identify with them their unstudied and unmonitored volcanoes. There is an urgent need, in my view, to make the training of those who desire training and capacity building, as well as ?new? science on ?new? volcanoes, a much higher priority in the future. I believe that this would be a huge benefit for our science and to us all, as well as for people vulnerable to hazards. These days it is now possible for some of our colleagues experienced with this to train someone from the developing world in 2 weeks or less to build a seismometer, tiltmeter or other monitoring device of high quality at surprisingly low cost. Fund-raising collectively for this, prioritising this, could be a way to ensure that hundreds of unmonitored and unstudied volcanoes can be covered in coming decades and provide new knowledge for all to advance our science and make the world a safer place to live in for the many. Please consider these thoughts when embarking on new volcanological efforts or when casting your vote, as in IAVCEI/AGU/GSA elections. In the hope that this may trigger some debate within the volcanological community, Best wishes and kind regards, Gerald ERNST ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dr. Gerald GJ. ERNST, Belgian NSF Researcher, Geological Institute, Mercator & Ortelius Research Centre for Eruption Dynamics (under development), University of Ghent, Krijgslaan 281/S8, 9000 Ghent, Belgium Email: plumeman2000@xxxxxxxxxxx ============================================================== To unsubscribe from the volcano list, send the message: signoff volcano to: listserv@xxxxxxx, or write to: volcano-request@xxxxxxxx To contribute to the volcano list, send your message to: volcano@xxxxxxxx Please do not send attachments. ==============================================================
