We have 6 categories: Height (m); unpredictability; Wow! Factor, Deadliness, Explosivity and Devastation Potential. All are based on the real data from each volcano: we wanted to mix having lots of fun with learning something new and exciting about volcanoes. Have a look at our categories by clicking on a link in the drop down menu.
Here is a summary:
- Height. Height in metres above sea level (Between 0 and 5897)
- Unpredictability: An index created from the range and frequency of different sizes of activity at that volcano (0 to 100)
- Wow! Factor: An index that reflects the relative amount the volcano makes the VTT Team go Wow!(*) ( 0 to 100)
- Deadliness: An index made from the recorded deaths as a direct result of that volcano’s activity ( 0 to 1000)
- Explosivity: The maximum recorded eruption (Volcanic Explosivity Index: 0 to 8)
- Devastation Potential: An index to reflect the possible havoc if a maximum eruption happened now (0 to 1000)
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.
Nonetheless we’ve shown you the date of the last known eruption for the volcanoes we’ve featured in ‘Our Volcanoes‘.
(*) With the caveat, all volcanoes make us go Wow!