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VOLCANO WATCH: Giant Of Vulcanology Retires
(BIVN) – In this week’s Volcano Watch article, the USGS Hawaiian Volcano Observatory bids a hui hou to a “giant of vulcanology”, retired University of Hawaiʻi professor Bruce Houghton.
In 2025, Professor Bruce Houghton retired from the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa after 25 years as the Gordon A. Macdonald Chair of Volcanology. He was only the second person to hold the position in the past half century. With his retirement, let’s reflect on a career that helped shape how scientists understand explosive eruptions, volcanic hazards, and how communities live with active volcanoes.
Born and educated in New Zealand, Houghton established himself as a leading volcanologist at the Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences (GNS) New Zealand before joining the University of Hawaiʻi in 2000. In Hawaii, he became not only a researcher and professor, but also the State Volcanologist.
Volcano Watch: A hui hou to a giant of volcanology
“Volcano Watch” is a weekly article and activity update written by US Geological Survey Hawaiian Volcano Observatory scientists and affiliates.
Professor Bruce Houghton retired in 2025 from University of HawaiÊ»i at MÄnoa after 25 years as the Gordon A. Macdonald Chairperson of Volcanology. He was only the second person to have the position in the past half century.
With his retirement, let’s reflect on a career that helped shape how scientists understand explosive eruptions, volcanic hazards and how communities live with active volcanoes.
Houghton was born and educated in New Zealand. He established himself as a leading volcanologist at Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences New Zealand before 2000, when he joined University of Hawaiʻi.
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There's a Volcano in Antarctica Spewing Crystals of Gold Into The Atmosphere
But one volcano deep in the farthest, frozen reaches of our planet marches to the beat of a slightly different drum.
On Ross Island in the Ross Sea, a deep bay in Antarctica, Mount Erebus fumes about 1,350 kilometers (840 miles) from the Geographic South Pole. The world's southernmost active volcano, it bubbles with a permanent lake of blazing lava.
And in the gas constantly pouring forth from this gate to the underworld, scientists found microscopic particles of crystalline, elemental gold.
According to a 1991 research paper, published in Geophysical Research Letters, Erebus belches out about 80 grams (2.8 ounces) of microscopic gold dust per day, scattering it as far as 1,000 kilometers away – maybe even farther.
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