Top Trumps Volcanoes Card Game

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Like all the best things in life it has been ‘a journey’, starting with the fun arguments about which 30 volcanoes and what categories to choose (a mix of tectonic environments, roughly representative of global volcano distribution if you must know) and ending with us taxing our limited sales skills at a variety of events up and down the country.

Deadliness. An Index from 0 to 1000 ( Krakatau in Indonesia) Essentially a measure of fatalities in the past. We have quite deliberately NOT used direct casualties in this figure. However, we created the index from the total number of historical fatalities directly attributed to volcanic activity. For some volcanoes this involves more than one fatal eruption (for example, Merapi in Indonesia, Mayon in the Phillipines). This explains why Yellowstone does not score well in this category. It has not had any historical fatalities. The 1883 eruption of Krakatau caused over 35,000 deaths. Although the 1815 eruption of Tambora killed many more people, a large majority of these were from secondary starvation from the devastated agricultural production in the region. Wow factor– 89. Despite losing its top in 1980, Mount St Helens is still a captivating sight, amd this is why our judges thought this had the Wow! factor. Devastation potential– 270. Cotopaxi’s larger eruptions pose some threat to the villages, towns and cities that lie in the pathway of its lahars. 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.An animated conversation about how great it would be turned into an enthusiastic letter to Top Trumps Towers (yes, really!) which turned into a phone call, which turned into a visit and ….. eventually….. the full blown card game. Last known eruption: Yasur has been in a continuous state of activity since at least 1774, when Captain James Cook first reported the sighting of ‘ a Volcano which threw up vast quantities of fire and smoak and made a rumbling noise which was heard at a good distance.’

Wow! Factor– 84 The combination of its imposing height, snowcap and its symmetrical cone, ensure that Cotopaxi is a relatively high scorer for Wow! Factor. Simply put, these should be collaborative, inclusive and imaginative. A link to enter the competition can be found here: https://volcanoestoptrumps.org/vtt-community-competition/. The closing date is 15 August 2016.Fun fact– One of the many disaster movies about volcanoes is ‘ Krakatoa, East of Java‘, released in 1969. As well as mis-spelling the name of the volcano, Krakatau is, of course, west of Java! 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. Unpredictability: An index created from the range and frequency of different sizes of activity at that volcano (0 to 100) Devastation Potential– 684. Santorini is a large caldera volcano, with a well known history of large and damaging eruptions and, on geological timescales, this will probably happen again.