Funtime Gifts LED Mini Lava Volcano Lamp, Integrated, 4.5 W, Plastic, Red

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Fearnley CJ (2013) Assigning a volcano alert level: negotiating uncertainty, risk, and complexity in decision-making processes. Environ Plan A 45:1891–1911

It has been well established that VALS are designed to provide a ‘bridge’ between the scientific data on risk gathered through the monitoring process and the mitigation decisions and actions involved in the practical management of and response to the relevant hazards (Fearnley 2011; Gardner and Guffanti 2006). There has been very little research to date, however, concerned with the use of VALS to facilitate the communication of the scientific assessment of risk to those required to make practical management and response decisions. Recent exceptions have focused on the issues that arise around the distribution of tasks and decision-making responsibilities between the volcano scientists responsible for deciding alert levels, and the decision-makers who rely on the alert levels when making decisions during volcanic crises that have significant social consequences (e.g. Andreastuti et al. 2017; Hill et al. 2017; Newhall and Solidum 2017; Potter et al. 2017). Fearnley ( 2013) established that in practice, the high levels of both scientific uncertainty and risk so characteristic of volcanic activity have required that scientists consult locally and take social and political factors into account when deciding alert levels. Fearnley concludes that more transparently deliberative approaches that bring scientists and decision-makers together to agree on alert levels would have the potential to legitimise a greater level of coproduction of knowledge, and increase shared understanding of the uncertainties and risks involved on all sides. More recently, Papale ( 2017) appears to take issue with this suggestion. Citing the “principle of separation of roles”, he proposes instead that “scientists should base their evaluations exclusively on scientific knowledge, providing decision-makers with clear, unambiguous information that they can use to fulfil their societal and political mandates” (Papale 2017, p. 4). He maintains that this information should consist of probabilistic forecasts, which he finds to be “in a form most suited to provide decision-makers with the realistic picture for their subsequent decisions” (Papale 2017, p. 4). Papale concludes that VALS should be replaced by a “rational approach, in which varied expertise is harnessed in a coordinated effort, uncertainties are fully recognised and quantified, communications are unambiguous, and responsibilities reflect the social role and societal mandate of all groups involved” (Papale 2017, p. 4). Areas of the Earth where plates move away from each other are called spreading or divergent plate margins. In these areas, volcanic eruptions are usually gentle extrusions of basaltic lava. Most of these eruptions occur underwater where magma rises from great depth below to fill the space created by seafloor spreading. This occurs at a rate of about 10 centimetres a year. Subducting plate margins The research that Cash et al. ( 2003) built on had already established that coordinated efforts of the kind invoked by Papale ( 2017) necessarily occur at the hybrid, dynamic interface between scientific and other communities, where the strategic demarcation of scientific and other tasks involves inevitable crossover (Guston 2001; Jasanoff 2011a, b; Parker and Crona 2012; Drimie and Quinlan 2011). In this article, we start from this understanding; it is not possible to restrict scientists to science when they are communicating scientific information across the boundary that divides science and non-science knowledge domains, and neither is it best practice.

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Drimie S, Quinlan T (2011) Playing the role of a ‘boundary organisation’: getting smarter with networking. Health Res Policy Systems 9(1):S11 Koetz T, Farrell KN, Bridgewater P (2012) Building better science-policy interfaces for international environmental governance: assessing potential within the intergovernmental platform for biodiversity and ecosystem services. Int Environ Agreements: Politics Law Econ 12(1):1–21 Metzger P, D’Ercole R, Sierra A (1999) Political and scientific uncertainties in volcanic risk management: the yellow alert in Quito in October 1998. GeoJournal 49:213–221 Crona B, Hubacek K (2010) The right connections: how do social networks lubricate the machinery of natural resource governance? Ecol Soc 15(4)

The USGS established four key ‘standard’ requirements for VALS, which were to “(1) accommodate various sizes, styles, and duration of volcanic activity; (2) work equally well during escalating and de-escalating activity; (3) be equally useful to both those on the ground and those aviation; and (4) retain and improve effective existing alert notification protocol” (Gardner and Guffanti 2006, p. 1). Notably, three of these requirements are directly concerned not with scientific information as such but rather with function—the effectiveness and usability of the VALS as a communication tool. Ongoing standardisation processes were driven by a combination of factors: internationally by the adoption of the internationally used ICAO aviation colour code; nationally by the social context of the post-9/11 USA, which shaped the broader emergency management policy; at state level by the requirement to have consistent VALS and alert level terminology to prevent confusion; and internally within the USGS, to provide a more consistent and clear message. These standardisation processes are discussed in more depth in Fearnley et al. ( 2012). These volcanoes erupt so explosively that little material builds up near the vent. Eruptions partly or entirely empty the underlying magma chamber which leaves the region around the vent unsupported, causing it to sink or collapse under its own weight. The resulting basin-shaped depression is roughly circular and is usually several kilometres or more in diameter. The lava erupted from caldera volcanoes is very viscous and generally the coolest with temperatures ranging from 650 °C to 800 °C and is called rhyolitic magma. Although caldera volcanoes are rare, they are the most dangerous. Volcanic hazards from this type of eruption include widespread ash fall, large pyroclastic density currents (avalanches of tephra) and tsunami from caldera collapse. Brantley SR, Geological survey (U.S.) (1990) The eruption of redoubt volcano, Alaska, December 14, 1989–August 31, 1990. U.S. Geological Survey circular, vol 1061. US Government Printing Office Both studies also bring scientists closer solving the mystery of volcanic lighting. "It's surprising that there are really different processes inside a volcanic eruption plume system that generate electrification," van Eaton said. "It opens a world of questions that we didn't even know existed."At subducting plate margins, one plate is pushed under a neighbouring plate as they squeeze together. In these margins, wet sediment and seawater is forced down in addition to the old, weathered plate. The addition of this sediment and seawater creates andesitic or rhyolitic lava and more violent eruptions containing ash. These volcanoes form classic cone shapes. Hotspot volcanoes