Top Trumps Volcanoes Card Game

Product Information

Height– 2549 m. Before the May 1980 eruption, Mount St Helens’ summit was the fifth highest peak in Washington State, reaching 2950 m. Now, it’s not even in the ‘Top 20’ peaks of the region, and is dwarfed by Mount Rainier, a huge ice-capped volcano that lies about 55 km to the north. Eyjafjallajökull is not a very active, or very well known volcano. It last erupted in 1821 – 1823, and may have erupted four or five times in the past 2000 years. The historical record of activity at Fuji is long, with eruptions known since 781 AD, and many more eruptions known from the geological record. Fuji last erupted in December 1707. Unpredictability– 34. The long and well studied record of past eruptions means that the unpredictability is relatively low.

Devastation Potential– 320. The next eruption of Fuji could certainly cause widespread disruption, particularly if winds blow ash across Tokyo. Height– 5,897m. Not much more needs to be said about that. The Top Trump for height in our collection. Wow! Factor An Index from 0 to 100 ( Fuji in Japan) ! Our most subjective factor. This was an interesting category to construct. There are so many things about volcanoes, that make you go wow! The pictures on the cards reflect the large differences. Some volcanoes have beautiful and impressive edifices that are very imposing or grand ( Fuji, Villarica, Mayon), some frequently erupt fantastic globules of red-spattering magma (e.g. Yasur), some leave behind traces of huge scale eruptions (e.g. Vesuvius). The range of these types is represented in our volcanoes. You can discuss with you class what aspects of volcanic activity makes them go Wow! This Top Cards: Endangered Animals Game is a fantastic interactive way to support your teaching on endangered animals. And, just like our volcano top trumps cards, each card comes complete with a picture and key facts. Last known eruption: March 2010 – June 2010. The eruption began with a small fire-fountaining eruption, from a fissure called Fimmvörðuháls about 5 kilometres east of the summit. The main explosive part of the eruption began, rather unexpectedly, in the summit on April 14th, and continued on and off for a few weeks.One of the questions we get asked a lot is: Why didn’t we include ‘last known eruption’ as a category? That is because this was quite a difficult question to answer correctly on the cards! Some of the volcanoes we have featured are in continuous eruption so we would have had to write ‘continuous’ (and who wins Top Trumps with a ‘continuous’answer!) and if one of our volcanoes had a new eruption that would be wrong too. Some of our very violent volcanoes don’t erupt all that frequently so their last known eruption is a very long time ago, or not that accurately known. Yasur, on Tanna island, Vanuatu, is one of the active volcanoes of the New Hebrides arc, which has formed where the Australian tectonic plate is subducting beneath the Pacific plate. Yasur lies on the Pacific plate. Very few volcanoes on land are generated by rifting processes (the magma usually oozes up quietly, unseen, at the bottom of our oceans). The majority of our volcanoes are in different subduction zones, but some are associated with intra-plate settings.

Unpredictability: An index created from the range and frequency of different sizes of activity at that volcano (0 to 100)

Eyjafjallajökull is an ice-covered volcano in southern Iceland. It was a volcano very few people had heard of before it erupted in April 2010, scattering fine ash across northern Europe and bringing air travel to a grinding halt. The volcano itself is actually called Eyjafjöll, but this is not quite such a tongue-twister for non-native speakers of Icelandic. Wow! Factor:An index that reflects the relative amount the volcano makes the VTT Team go Wow !(*) ( 0 to 100). Because we could not agree to do this we tried to use it as a demonstration of how scientists sometimes try to approach something that is hard to quantify. We can’t measure prettiness, impressiveness, or pointiness, but those are the types of things we think of when considering how much a volcano makes you go ‘wow’. Deadliness – 679. The 1985 eruption was the deadliest in living memory, so Nevado Del Ruiz’s score reflects this tragedy