Profs & Pints Richmond: Peering into Volcanoes

Profs and Pints Richmond presents: “Peering into Volcanoes,” an exploration of one of nature’s most dramatic and unpredictable forces, with David Kitchen, associate professor of geology at the University of Richmond and expert on volcanoes, earthquakes, and natural disasters.

[Advance tickets: $13.50 plus sales tax and processing fees. Available at https://www.ticketleap.events/tickets/profsandpints/richmond-volcanoes .]

The destruction of ancient Pompeii by Mount Vesuvius, the legendary 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens, and the silent threat of Yellowstone’s deep magma reservoirs all serve as reminders that tremendous power lurks beneath our feet.

Gain an understanding of volcanoes, the risks they pose, and scientists’ efforts to understand them with David Kitchen, a researcher of volcanoes and volcanic processes who has visited and studied active and ancient volcanoes across the world. His talk promises to blend cutting-edge science with real-world risk analysis and depictions of awe-inspiring natural beauty.

Dr. Kitchen will discuss how the restless movement of Earth’s plates gives rise to towering mountains of fire, explosive eruptions, and vast fields of molten rock. We’ll explore how volcanoes form, why they erupt, how magma rises from the mantle, and how different types of volcanoes grow.

You’ll learn what makes some eruptions far more dangerous than others and how modern science is working to predict and mitigate the devastating hazards volcanoes pose — including ash falls, lava flows, violent mud and debris flows, and lateral blasts. We’ll look at vivid case studies from America’s own active volcanic regions—the Cascades, Long Valley, Yellowstone, the Great Basin, and Alaska.

Come and discover the story of the fire beneath our feet and why it matters to us all. (Doors: $17, or $15 with a student ID. Listed time is for doors. The talk starts 30 minutes later.)

Image: The January 2018 eruption of the Mount Mayon volcano in the Philippines. Photo by Darkimages08 / Wikimedia Commons.