These days, one hears a lot of talk about the 'Information Super Highway'. Often, one wonders what this actually means to us as individuals or as professional scientists. As soon as you discover the delights of Internet and the National Center for Supercomputing Application's program called 'Mosaic', you’ll see that the super highway has a lot to offer. Mosaic is an information browser that runs on the 'World Wide Web'. This enables documents to be linked together with information or images somewhere else on the Internet. For those who have not visited 'The Web', it offers endless pieces of information in the form of text and images for virtually every topic imaginable
Volcanologists seem to have taken to the Web in a very strong manner, and there are already several sources of information (called 'Home Pages') available that are dedicated to volcanology. The short summary of what is out there reviews some of the content of these volcanology home pages, and provides the addresses (formally called the 'URL' for Universal Resource Location) that one uses in Mosaic to get to a specific home page.
This may sound quite confusing if you have never used Mosaic before but trust me, many people (including most of the graduate students!) seem to be using Mosaic all of the time, and I am sure that they would be happy to show you how to log on to the program. Once you see what's there, you're bound to get hooked since Mosaic can provide same-day coverage of on- going eruptions, detailed background information and pictures of some interesting volcanoes, and an overview of the different types of volcanological research that is conducted at different universities and government facilities. It really can evolve into a great research resource, since much of the information that one usually has to search for hours is readily at hand! There also seem to be additions to several of the Home Pages almost every week so that it is really worth checking your favourite home pages on a regular basis to see what's new.
One of the other exciting aspects of Mosaic is its educational potential. Already the Hawaii Space Grant Consortium has been funded by NASA to provide science data of Hawaii over Internet as part of a three-year project to enhance the use of NASA data in the tourist industry and other aspects of the private sector in Hawaii. The University of North Dakota has also been funded under this same program to develop educational modules for use at the Hawaii Volcanoes National Park and Mt. St. Helens National Monument in order to teach the general public about volcanoes and volcanic hazards. Soon, we will also be including the community colleges and the schools in the same type of electronic outreach. One can envision that class activities and field trips to volcanoes can be planned for students of all ages using the World Wide Web. The remote sensing part of the Geology and Geophysics Department's Field methods Class (GG 305) will also be available over the World Wide Web this coming Spring.
Finally, it should be noted that the Web does not only deal with volcanism on planet Earth because NASA has provided much of the motivation to promote the use of Internet, there are numerous home pages that are dedicated to planetary geology. Volcanism on the Moon can be studied with images collected by the Clementine mission, there are several home pages devoted to the geology of Mars, and there are others that review different parts of the geology and volcanology of lo (the volcanically active moon of Jupiter) and Venus. Here is a list of some of the most interesting Home Pages currently on Mosaic that relate to volcanology. Enjoy!
The NASA EOS Volcanology Team URL = http://eos.higp.hawaii.edu//
The EOS Volcanology Team contains several member of HCV/ SOEST, including Pete MouginisMark (Team Leader), Steve Self, Scott Rowland, and Luke Flynn. As has been described in previous issues of the HCV Newsletter, EOS will be a set of 23 satellites that will start to fly in 1998, and will collect long-term data sets about the Earth and its climate. This home page includes a general introduction to the EOS mission, a list of the Volcanology Team members and collaborators, a discussion of the volcanic phenomena that are being studied using remote sensing, several slide sets that present illustrations of the volcanoes that are studied by the Team (currently, there are slide sets of Pemandina (Galapagos), Mt. St. Helens, Pinatubo, and Piton de la Fournaise (Reunion Island)). Three other educational slide sets, each containing 20- 40 slides on the analysis of the surface and atmospheric effects of the 1991 eruption of Pinatubo, volcano topography, and volcanoes and volcanic hazards, are also included A lot of other information related to upcoming NASA missions can also be accessed via this server.