Hello VMSG. After a brief hiatus, we’re back with a bumper VMSG Newsletter, full of exciting announcements and updates. Alongside announcements about VMSG2026 and the MinSoc150 meetings next year, we have news of prizes and awards won by the VMSG community, reports from VMSG bursary winners and a request for you to get nominating for the next round of VMSG-sponsored awards. Various VMSG members share their reflections on many of the exciting meetings that have taken place over recent months. We also have an introduction from our new ECR Rep and some announcements about volcano-related events in the coming months. We also got a report on where VMSG stands a a community on social media and some thoughts about what this means for building and strengthen our ties as a supportive community of volcanologists from our new Chair. As always, if there’s something we’ve missed, let me know and we’ll get it into the next newsletter! – David Neave (Newsletter Editor)
The Local Organising Committee are very excited to welcome you all to The National Oceanography Centre, Southampton, for the VMSG2026 meeting, to be held in-person from the 5th – 7th January 2026. The conference will open on the afternoon of the 5th with an interactive icebreaker (hopefully featuring the world famous “Boaty McBoatface”) The conference dinner will take place at the Everest Nepalese and Indian Restaurant, on the evening of the 6th.
Expect all your favourite sessions, and a special session focussed on volcanism in the marine environment, as well as workshops (to be held on the mornings of the 5th or the 8th January) on volcanic deposits in marine sediment cores (hosted at the British Ocean Sediment Core Research Facility) and science communication during volcanic disasters, among others.
Abstract submission and discounted early bird registration will open in September and will close in November, allowing us to notify presenters of their allocated format by early December. Full price registration will close at the start of December.
Further details and the information about the website will follow. We look forwards to welcoming you to Southampton in January! – Isobel Yeo, Martin Mangler and Mike Clare (on behalf of the VMSG2026 Local Organising Committee)
Southampton awaits for VMSG2026!
Its awards season, and congratulations are needed for the members of our VMSG community who have received awards!
First up big congratulations to former VMSG ECR Rep Claire Harnett (University College Dublin) who received the George Walker Award of IAVCEI, awarded for excellence to a scientist less than seven years after completion of their PhD.
In the same suite of IAVCEI Awards Lionel Wilson (Lancaster University) received the Thorarinsson Award, recognising fantastic lifetime achievements for a volcanologist.
At EGU, Heather Handley (Twente University) received the Katia and Maurice Krafft Award in recognition of her achievements in the inclusive communication of geosciences. Well done!
Congratulations to former VMSG Secretary Rich Brown (Durham University) who received the Dewey Medal of the Geological Society of London for his substantial and sustained contributions to field mapping and to Clive Oppenheimer (University of Cambridge) who received the Societies RH Worth Award for significant contributions to outreach and public engagement. Another former committee member, Kathryn Goodenough (BGS), received the Coke Medal for her contribution to science and sustained service to geosciences along with Joel Gill (Cardiff University).
Finally… congratulations too to David Pyle (Oxford University) and Marie Edmonds (University of Cambridge ) who are to be elected Fellows of the Royal Society (UK). (ed: Steve Sparks also notes the election of another familiar volcanological name this year, Claude Jaupart from IPGP)
Is there a great VMSG scientist missing out on recognition for their achievements? Let us know if we have missed a recent Award Winner. This is a good moment to remind you that we have our own society awards and nomination time is just around the corner! We support awards at multiple career stages! The time our community members take to share nominations for our excellent colleagues is always appreciated – so thinking caps on! So on this note, we ask for nominations for our VMSG Award, The Zeiss Postdoctoral Keynote Award and Willy Aspinall Prize. More details below… – Jenni Barclay (Chair) and VMSG Committee
The closing date for the next round of awards and bursaries is 15 September 2025, so here is a gentle reminder!
We are seeking nominations for our VMSG Award, Willy Aspinall Prize and Zeiss Postdoctoral Keynote Award. Please consider nominating someone who you feel has made a substantial impact in their area of research but also gone above and beyond to make a contribution to the research community. As a quick reminder, here’s a description of the scope of each of these awards:
Please see the awards website for further details on each award and how to nominate. We particularly encourage nominations from historically under-represented groups to all these awards.
We also welcome applications for student bursaries, which offer funding to postgraduate researchers of up to £500 to support activities that would otherwise not be possible. Remember, PhD students in their first year are now eligible to apply but you still must have presented at a VMSG conference prior to the application deadline.
Please see the bursaries website for further details and to apply. – Katy Chamberlain (Awards and Bursaries) and VMSG Committee
Alex Riddell (University of Manchester) writes: This summer, I had the great pleasure of attending the International Association of Volcanology and Chemistry of the Earth’s Interior (IAVCEI) Scientific Assembly in Geneva, with thanks to the generous support of the VMSG student bursary.
I presented a poster on my recent publication, which explores the underestimation of CO₂ emissions at Soufrière Hills volcano using an Optical MultiGAS. This sparked many insightful and engaging discussions, not only with those focused on volcanic gas monitoring, but also with researchers across the wider volcanology community. I had particularly interesting conversations about how these findings intersect with work in petrology, and how they may inform interpretations of subsurface processes.
It was great to see many familiar faces from the growing UK volcanic gas community as well to finally meet so many of the international colleagues whose papers I’ve been reading for the last few years. Putting faces to names was a real highlight!
A key takeaway of the conference was the opportunity to hear how others approach the challenges of calculating gas fluxes, error analysis, and best practices for transparent data reporting. These conversations reinforced the value of collaborative, multiparametric approaches combining remote sensing, petrology, and modelling to build physically constrained interpretations of volcanic systems.
While Geneva itself may not have any active volcanoes, it was a wonderful host city. On Monday evening, the Jet d’Eau was lit up in magma red, reaching 140 m into the air (I cannot imagine what experiencing the 300 m+ Kīlauea lava fountains must be like). The heatwave during the week gave the conference an appropriately magmatic feel, but thankfully there was plenty of free ice cream and the beautiful lake to swim in each evening.
Beyond the scientific content, the conference was a hugely rewarding social experience and has left me feeling energised and focused. I’m especially motivated to push forward with my current work comparing SO₂ flux techniques at Mt Etna, based on fieldwork from last summer. Discussions with colleagues about future research directions have also helped me clarify my focus for the remaining two and a half years of my PhD.
Thank you again to VMSG for supporting my attendance at the IAVCEI Scientific Assembly.
Thomas Johnston (University College Dublin) writes: Thanks to the support of the VMSG Student Travel Bursary I was able to attend an Institute for Rock Magnetism Visiting Fellowship at the University of Minnesota from 24th March–2nd April 2025. This allowed me to learn a range of palaeomagnetic techniques and apply these to my PhD samples collected earlier in my project.
My project is titled ‘Using Block and Ash Flow Deposits to Infer Lava Dome Collapse Dynamics and Resultant Hazards’ and investigates the deposits of the 2015 dome collapse block and ash flow at Volcan de Colima, Mexico. The project aims to characterise the block and ash flow deposits with a particular focus on the block properties. The ultimate aim being to link the deposits to collapse processes and precollapse dome conditions. This VMSG bursary has supported my aims as I undertook palaeomagnetic analyses of blocks collected at 1 km intervals along the 2015 block and ash flow deposits.
During my time at the Institute for Rock Magnetism I learned how to take thermal remanent magnetism (TRM), magnetic susceptibility and hysteresis measurements and how to start processing this data. The thermal demagnetisation allows for measurement of the magnetic remanence of the rock; this data will be used to make inferences for the source of the block as juvenile blocks should match the geographic orientation while blocks prior to collapse will have a different orientation to the geographic orientation. The magnetic susceptibility and hysteresis curves can be used to support the TRM measurements. They show that these rocks had a range of magnetic minerals present, such as titano-magnetites and titano-haematites with different amounts of titanium present, and will allow us to explore the thermal conditions in both the dome and the resulting pyroclastic density current.
I’m a Daphne Jackson Trust Research Fellow at the University of Cambridge, returning from a 7-year career break. My research focuses on the formation of layered mafic intrusions, integrating detailed field-based data collection with textural, microstructural, and geochemical techniques. My goal as ECR rep is to foster a greater sense of community between VMSG members by using the neglected, COVID-era Discord server for general socialising (like crafternooning!), scientific discussions, and to give members a platform to arrange social events (online or otherwise) with likeminded members. Not everyone will be part of a large, lively geoscience department, with many members also working remotely (like myself), and who may feel isolated, socially and/or scientifically. My hope is that the Discord server could go some way to alleviate this sense of isolation and connect VMSG members for years to come. – Luke Hepworth (ECR Rep)
The Mineralogical Society of the UK and Ireland (MinSoc), one of VMSG’s umbrella organisations, is turning 150 next year. As part of the celebrations, the MinSoc will be running a three-day conference at the University of Manchester on the 24th to 26th of June 2026. The conference will feature sessions focusing on all aspects of the MinSoc’s activities, with invited keynote talks. As part of this, VMSG will be co-convening a session with MSG and MDSG, titled “Crystal records of volcanic, magmatic and mineralisation processes”. Watch this space for more developments… – Mike Stock (Committee Member) and David Neave (Newsletter Editor)
We are excited to welcome you to an upcoming symposium in Niigata, Japan this year. It will be held in October (7th–10th, with an optional field excursion on the 11th and 12th). The overall theme is “Volcanology in Practice,” with three days centred on interconnected themes of “Exposure, preparedness, and risk reduction” (co-organised by the Global Volcanic Risk Alliance ); “The next generation of volcano monitoring” (co-organised by VolcanoTech); and “Knowledge-sharing” (co-organised by the Asian Consortium of Volcanology). The aim is really to bring together researchers, pracademics, developers, and those working in observatories and related institutions, throughout Japan, across Asia, and beyond. More details are available here: thevolcano.world.
The “Exposure, preparedness, and risk reduction” day will feature a workshop led by Dr Lara Mani (University of Cambridge) focussed on evacuation protocols. “The next generation of volcano monitoring,” organised by Dr Tom Pering (Sheffield University) will include an opportunity for showcasing monitoring software, tools, and technology which have been developed independently, with the aim of introducing these to other interested parties. The “Knowledge-sharing” session will cover themes of how volcano research is transferred not only between researchers, but also to and from monitoring agencies and the general public. It will include a panel discussion moderated by Dr Eisuke Fujita (NIED) featuring, among others, Dr Christina Widiwijayanti (EOS/WOVO), Ma. Antonia Bornas (PHIVOLCS), and Christina Magill and Josh Hayes from Earth Sciences New Zealand. The meeting will also feature a keynote from Patricia Mothes from Instituto Geofísico of the Escuela Politécnica Nacional (IG-EPN), who has a wealth of experience on each of the symposium themes, and is sure to provide some terrific insights.
The symposium itself is free to attend, although there will be some social events and field excursions for which expenses will be collected locally in cash. I realise that travel costs to Japan may be high—we are exploring options to provide some available (partial) travel grants for attendees, but we cannot commit to covering all potential participants. If this is a major concern for anyone, please let me know. This should be a great opportunity to build meaningful collaborations and share knowledge, so I hope that many of you are available and willing to register. Please get in contact if you have any questions about the event. – Jamie Farquharson (Niigata University; jfarquharson@gs.niigata-u.ac.jp)
Mt Myōkō, an active stratovolcano in Niigata Prefecture (credit: J Farquharson)
After a successful set of events over the past four years, the Earth Science Women’s Network (ESWN) Professional Development and Networking Committee (formerly Member Events) is now planning a new set of event activities for implementation in future years from late 2025 onward. To ensure that our activities are aligned with the needs and interests of the ESWN community and that they are timely, we invite you to participate in a brief survey to help us shape the program. The survey deadline has been extended to July 31st 2025 (ed: I appreciate this may now be a little late – but worth a look nonetheless).
This survey should only take a few minutes [~5 mins] of your time and is available here: ESWN survey
Thank you for your support, time and contributions! – The ESWN Professional Development and Networking Committee
The VMSG community was well-represented at the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s 8th Global Platform for Disaster Risk Reduction held between the 4–6th June, in Geneva, Switzerland. The Global Platform brings together the global community working on disaster risk reduction and is a crucial forum for assessing progress on the implementation of the Sendai Framework. Participation from the VMSG community included presentations on the Ignite Stage by Carina Fearnley and Molly Urquhart from the UCL Warning Research Centre, and Lara Mani from the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk, both using engaging activities to demonstrate the importance of early warning systems in volcanic settings. Amy Donovan was on the organising team for a High-Level Dialogue on “Advancing multi-hazard early warnings and early and anticipatory action: User-centred design for a resilient future” and Carina Fearnley also co-organised the side-event “Equity in Action: Early Warnings for All People”. Members of the VMSG community also participated in the GeoRiskNet side meeting hosted at the World Meteorological Organisation, with the aim of building greater coordination across geohazards communities for multi-lateral representation. – Lara Mani (Sponsorship)
Left to right: Mike Cassidy (University of Birmingham), Lara Mani (University of Cambridge), Melanie Duncan (BGS), Amy Donovan (University of Cambridge), Molly Urquhart (UCL), Carina Fearnley (UCL) and Jonathan Stone (IFRC).
The 2025 IAVCEI scientific assembly took place at the end of June amid a heatwave in Geneva. With a broad program centred around the energies of magma – from volcanic plumbing systems, monitoring methods and physical eruption processes, through to risk assessment and hazard communication – many themes across the VMSG community were well represented, with a large number of participants from the UK and Ireland. Alongside the main conference sessions and a mid-conference fieldtrip to CERN, VMSG members were involved in organising a wide range of workshops and in leading meetings of several of the IAVCEI commissions and networks, as well as the post-conference Early Warning for All workshop. – Seb Watt (Secretary)
On the 18th of July 1995 the Soufriere Hills Volcano (SHV) had the first in what would become a challenging series of eruptions. That first eruption was phreatic but what would follow was five periods of surface magmatic activity, delivered over 15 years as explosions, fast and slow growing domes, and collapses big and small. The volcano remains in a state of active unrest today. For many volcanologists in the VMSG community understanding these eruptions and their impacts has played a formative or central role in their academic career.
On the 14th-18th July 2025 the Montserrat Volcano Observatory and UWI Seismic Research Centre hosted and ran the SHV30th commemoration conference on Montserrat. The Theme of the Conference was ‘Turning Magma into Momentum’ signalling the desire to reconcile the challenges of living with the consequences of volcanic activity with the benefits that can be gained from living on a volcanic island replete with geological resources. With around 100 attendees there was a strong showing from the VMSG community: joining panels, hosting workshops, providing talks, outreach materials and running fieldtrips – as well as acting in a play (more on that in the next newsletter!). This covered everything from excellence in risk assessment, monitoring and petrology to the state-of-the-art in the green potential of geothermal, and geotourism. Congratulations to the organising team for an action-packed and stimulating week! – Jenni Barclay (Chair)
Momentum: Panellists sharing views on the need for further conversations about the land in the south of the island.
Social media follower counts have continued previous trends of slow growth on most platforms through late 2024 and into the first half of 2025, with the continued exception being a slow decrease in Twitter/X and faster growth on BlueSky as academics move from one platform to the other. From October 2024 to July 2025, followers on Twitter/X total -112 / -2%, Instagram +51 / +7%, YouTube 30 / +11%, Facebook -1 / 0%, and BlueSky 256 / 149%. Across all platforms, there has been a net increase in followers of 289 / 4%.
VMSG’s social media trends
In April 2025, VMSG also launched a public LinkedIn page after discovering a previously created private group was invite-only. The private group has a total of 595 members and continues to get occasional new requests, but is no longer actively used and shows a pinned post directing to the new page. This has 65 followers to-date, but is increasing at a steady rate. – James Dalziel (Social Media)
For a brief and flamboyant moment the platform-formerly-known-as-Twitter offered a wonderful gathering place for global volcanologists – imagine a tree with many branches and thick foliage shading us from the worst excesses of #badacademia. At its best it was collaborative, democratic and subverted traditional academic hierarchies through communication and knowledge sharing. The VMSG feeds regularly lit up with talk highlights, new papers, pictures and more. More recently, the leaves have fallen down from our tree and its got more shady(*) in the worst possible way.
James’ analysis demonstrates that our user numbers on X are somewhat holding firm but engagement is well down, and pick up on other platforms does not compensate. So, where is our virtual water cooler these days, is it back to snatched conversations in corridors? Are we all too busy post pandemic to bother?
As a communication ‘enthusiast’ I’ve been one of the folk who’ve joined Bluesky (its not the same as peak Twitter) resolved to join LinkedIn in 2025 (following VMSG’s lead), and have experimented with TikTok (and abandoned Facebook) of late, but feel a bit listless about any one of these as a place to create that sense of community which helps academia to thrive. Luke Hepworth our new ECR Rep is also making steps to re-vitalise our Discord server (see above). Where do we want to hang out? Do we need to, or should I just calm down and make friends with ChatGPT? Answers on a postcard please!
(*)Shady (Urban dictionary): to act fake or be a hypocrite. – Jenni Barclay (Chair)
Do you have any job opportunities, PhD viva celebrations, or funding announcements that you would like to advertise? If so, please get in touch with David Neave (Newsletter Editor).
Don’t forget to keep in touch with us and other volcanologists around the world. There are several ways you can do this: through the VMSG PhD and ECR directory (here), the Arizona State University mailing list (here), and the VMSG mailing list (here).
