David Pyle

@davidmpyle.bsky.social

1887 Followers 1426 Following

Volcanologist at the University of Oxford: volcanic histories, imaginaries, resources and futures. https://curatingcrises.omeka.net/ https://www.oxfordmartin.ox.ac.uk/rethinking-natural-resources/ https://www.torch.ox.ac.uk/vesuvius-22

Photograph of the red cover of a hardback children’s book called The Power of Volcanoes, with a circular cut out in the middle of the cover that reveals an illustration of an erupting volcano. The book is published today by Nosy Crow, illustrated by Daniel Long and written by Tamsin Mather and David Pyle.
Photograph of a freshly mown sports pitch, with dozens of portable toilets lined up around the edges of the pitch, and some mature trees in the background. Location - Oxford University Parks, the day before the Oxford 10 k road race.
Photograph of a pale brown rock surface with a human hand for scale, showing a roughly circular textured pattern in the sandstone surface which is thought to be the feeding trace of a polychaete worm.
Black and white photo-postcard showing the steaming gorge of Gages Soufriere, Montserrat, and the bare, altered rock around the sides of the gully. The sulphur and steam vents were vigorously active during a seismic crisis in the 1930s, and were eventually buried following the volcanic activity that began in 1995. Photographer: K. E. Perkins.
Photograph of the front cover of a new illustrated book on volcanoes for children, called the Power of Volcanoes. The cover has a red background, and a cut-out circle reveals an erupting volcano inside.
Photograph inside a stone-walled tunnel with one end open to the light. This structure is called a fogou, and is thought to have been constructed in the Iron Age. Location - Carn Euny ancient village, Cornwall. Thanks to English Heritage and Historic England Southwest for permissions.
Photograph of a large tub of wrapped chocolates of different colour and shapes, with three more tubs in the background
Photograph of the title page of G Poulett Scrope's 'Considerations on Volcanos' published in 1825
Photograph of people standing outside under an umbrella. Kurt Konhauser concluding his department seminar.
Screenshot of the BBC iplayer photograph advertising episode 6 of the comedy Leonard and Hungry Paul. The image shows two men, sitting side by side, both holding a hand of cards - which are Volcano Top Trumps.
Photograph of two people standing by some rocks in a gorge, with vegetation in the background. On the left - Dr Peter Friend, on the right Dr Irene Gomez-Perez, in conversation by the Carboneras fault, Granatilla valley, southern Almeria, Spain in April 2005. Peter and Irene were co-leading a Cambridge undergraduate Earth Sciences field class at the time. @cambridge-earthsci.bsky.social
Photograph of some bricks, one of which is made from yellow clay with the partial impression [RU]FFORD [STOU]RBRIDGE, near the colonial-era bakery building on Pigeon Island, St Lucia.
Rosetta West Gerald speaking at a podium in front of a slide on the Montserrat Murals tour
Photograph of Rosetta West Gerald at a podium presenting on tourism opportunities on Montserrat.
Photographic view across the sea of southern Montserrat, with the hazy green hill of the Soufriere Hills Volcano in the background, blue sky and clouds above.
Photograph of Reuben Meade at the podium, reflecting on his times as Chief Minister and Premier.
Photograph of Frank Savage in a pink shirt and linen jacket, and the Honourable Reuben T Meade, adjusting the microphone, on a stage in front of the SHV30 banner. Savage explains ‘my business suit is still on holiday in Antigua’.
Photograph of Dr Graham Ryan, director of the Montserrat Volcano Observatory standing in front of the SHV30 banner at the opening ceremony of the Soufrière Hills 30 years on conference, Montserrat
Screenshot of a part of the front page of SeismiCity News, Volume 1, Issue 1, dated January 24, 1997. This newsletter was jointly produced by the Montserrat National Trust and the Montserrat Volcano Observatory, and documented the continuing eruptions of the Soufriere Hills Volcano. The headline in this issue is 'Rapid Dome Growth Causes Pyroclastic Flows', and describes the growth of the lava dome during December 1996 and January 1997. The digital copies of the newsletter are held in the Digital Library of the Caribbean, dLoC.
The Speaker of the House of Commons Sir Lindsay Hoyle addresses a full room in speaker’s house, with many representatives from the Montserratian community in the UK and Montserrat. Hoyle was the first speaker to visit Montserrat.
Photograph of Hugh Jenkyns (University of Oxford; left) receiving the Lyell Medal from Geological Society President, Jon Gluyas.
Photograph of Prof Jenny Collier, Imperial College, accepting the Murchison Medal, in front of an image of Jenny inspecting an instrument on board a research ship
Photograph of Grace Petrie (facing away from the stage) and her band, in the song of their performance at Oxford’s O2 academy venue.
Letter from Danish seismologist Inge Lehmann, at the Danish Geodetic Institute, to Francis Whipple, at Kew Observatory, dated 21 October 1937. Lehmann thanks Whipple for sending her the drawing of the Kew recording apparatus (for recording seismic waves), but regrets that she is not able to modify her instrument in the same way. Source: The National Archives, Kew Observatory Correpondence, 1937 BJ 1/262
Photo of workshop convenors Miguel Ohnesorge and Katy Duncan in the Royal Institution lecture theatre
View of Oxford’s roofline from the top of the Weston library, including the Clarendon Building (left), the Sheldonian theatre (right) and the Radcliffe Camera (dome in the background).
Julie Belo closing the ‘tephra together’ workshop at GEOMAR
Photograph of the art installation ‘Kybernetiker’ by Anton Herzfeld, near the Wellingdorf dock, Kiel. A collection of metal statues of people all carrying briefcases and umbrellas and wearing hats, installed in 1996 and now taking on a rusty orange colour.
Sofia Della Sala with her title slide about to give a talk on hydrothermal activity in the Santorini caldera at GEOMAR, Kiel.
Extract from mural 'Tempus Fugit' (2025) by artist Anna Gudjonsdottir, Heong Gallery, Downing College
‘Delegate’ badge for audience members at the performance of Kyoto, Soho Place Theatre, London
Panorama photo of fans of columnar joints in an igneous intrusion, from the Miocene, Cabo de Gata, Spain.
Page on volcanoes from the COPE disaster champions children’s book series, in Korean.
Author and creator Martha Keswick talking about 10 years of the COPE disaster champions DRR book series designed to help children to ‘be ready’ for disasters (photo)
Photograph of a wooden shed door with a notice affixed saying ‘Quiet please exam in progress’ Oxford, June 2021
Screenshot map of part of the Aegean Sea, Greece, showing locations of small earthquakes detected by the University of Athens network; a cluster of earthquakes shows ongoing activity near the submarine volcano of Kolumbo, north east of Santorini
Google streetview image of a mountain road in southern Spain with a cluster of people wearing high-vis jackets looking at a rocky outcrop by the roadside. Most likely a geological field class.
Slab of rock (bedded volcaniclastic sediments) from the Borrowdale Volcanic Group, Langdale, UK resting against a garden wall.
Photo of rooftops in Antigua Guatemala, with Fuego volcano in the background and a small ash plume rising from the summit, and a trail of ash from earlier explosions visible in the sky
Gingerbread cookies decorated to represent zoned and twinned minerals.
Snowy scene in a garden
Photo of a museum display in the Sedgwick Museum, Cambridge, with a bust of a young Charles Darwin, and a new placard from a youth-engagement project saying ‘this is our planet let’s fight 4 it’
Group photograph of the Sedgwick club in 1986. Clive Oppenheimer was president that year.
Street graffiti in Cambridge, chalk on brick ‘TO THE RIVER’
Light up floor panels used as for interactive scenarios around an emerging volcanic crisis
Photograph of an optical illusion/dynamic design printed on a poster. These designs have been used to decorate Uchiwa fans, and can be found at venues across Oxford this month
Yellow volunteer T-shirt ready to be ironed in preparation for the IF Oxford science and ideas festival ‘here to help’
Title page of King Coal’s Levee, a poem and geological commentary published in 1819 (3rd edition) by Northumbrian poet John Scafe
Book display in Blackwells Oxford, for the launch of the paperback version of Clive Oppenheimer’s volcano memoir, ‘Mountains of Fire’
View of sunset across Therasia and the Kameni islands of Santorini Greece
Sign at National Oceanography Centre cafeteria today ‘reserved for deep sea sponges’
Mariana Patricia Jacome Paz addressing CoV12 conference
Andy Lockhart taking an audience selfie before his opening address to CoV12
Gustavo Chigna, head of volcanology, INSIVUMEH, Guatemala talking at CoV12 on the June 2018 eruption of Fuego
CoV 12 conference sign
Film poster from the 1950 film Vulcano, starring Anna Magnani.
Bookplate from the Gibraltar garrison library .. book may be borrowed for 10 days, and a forfeit of 8 quarts per day levied for non-return. Ca. 1875.
Agenda for the first meeting of the Volcanic Studies Group of the Geol Soc, March 1964 entitled 'A colloquium on pyroclastic rocks', chaired by AJT Dollar and FJ Fitch