Question: What volcanoes are the trickiest to work with?

Kate Dobson answered on 9 Dec 2020:

Good question. They can be difficult and temperamental things. Most active volcanoes are monitored (even if only from space) so we usually know when they are erupting, but it is impossible to predict exactly when and how an eruption is going to happen. If you want to study what happens during an eruption this can be a problem. The more explosive the volcano is, the harder it can be to predict what the eruption is going to be like, and that is probably the main challenge volcanologists face. We want to make sure we have time to evacuate anyone who lives in an area that might be in danger, but if we don’t know when the eruption is going to happen (we can often tell days or weeks or even years before an eruption that the magma is moving or collecting) or what will happen, it can be difficult to get those decisions right