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VolcanoStories Blk

The VolcanoStories project by GeoTenerife is a multi-media, science communication project, creating bespoke resources about volcanic activity, preparedness,  reconstruction, and sustainable tourism in the Canary Islands. We collaborate with leading local, regional, and national institutions via our unique training programmes GeoIntern, VolcanoCamp, and MarineSciCamp for students and scholars from around the globe.

La Palma infrastructure reconstruction, struggles of the residents, and the eruption

Over-tourism protests, unsustainable resorts, and activist movements

Volcanic risk, emergency plans, communication, and preparedness in the Canary Islands.

New: Opinion Piece published on VolcanoStories

Short-form , easy-to-read, articles, which are relevant to the residents of the Canary Islands. Available en Español and in English.

Cuna del Alma, el Aula Marina, y las Tortugas

Las Islas Canarias se promocionan como un paraíso de biodiversidad y turismo sostenible. Pero la historia del Puertito de Adeje SeaLab revela una realidad muy distinta: un patrón en el que las autoridades locales explotan las iniciativas de restauración ambiental para generar relaciones públicas

Cuna del Alma, the SeaLab and the Turtles

The Canary Islands are marketing themselves as a paradise of biodiversity and sustainable tourism. But the story of the Puertito de Adeje SeaLab reveals a very different truth: a pattern in which local authorities exploit environmental restoration initiatives for public relations, only to erase them

NEW: La Palma Reconstruction Update

La Palma Reconstruction – January 2026

Faults identified during the eruption continue to 'creep' - New eruption forecasting methods from La Palma highlighted by UNDRR - Students participate in water quality measurements - More than 1,100 families now returned to Puerto Naos and La Bombilla - Aid for second homes starting to be delivered

La Palma Reconstruction – December 2025

National Volcanology Centre Headquarters will be in La Palma - Gas extraction pipe installed in Puerto Naos - €1.2 billion spent by Spain on reconstruction - €100 million aid for lost farms - Income tax reduction extended until 2027 - LP-2 road reconstruction begins after delays - Protests from

Urgent events: 18M Protest

Frustrated by unchecked development and environmental degradation, 200,000 Canarians protested in April and several thousand again in October 2023, demanding a more sustainable tourism model that prioritises local needs and protects the islands’ fragile ecosystem. A third large-scale protest is being organised for May 2025 which we will be covering here on Urgent events.

WhatsApp Image 2024-04-24 at 13.12.44

Cuna del Alma, el Aula Marina, y las Tortugas

Las Islas Canarias se promocionan como un paraíso de biodiversidad y turismo sostenible. Pero la historia del Puertito de Adeje SeaLab revela una realidad muy distinta: un patrón en el que las autoridades locales explotan las iniciativas de restauración ambiental para generar relaciones públicas

Protest Coverage

NEW: El Puertito and the Cuna del Alma resort

Cuna del Alma, el Aula Marina, y las Tortugas

Las Islas Canarias se promocionan como un paraíso de biodiversidad y turismo sostenible. Pero la historia del Puertito de Adeje SeaLab revela una realidad muy distinta: un patrón en el que las autoridades locales explotan las iniciativas de restauración ambiental para generar relaciones públicas

Cuna del Alma, the SeaLab and the Turtles

The Canary Islands are marketing themselves as a paradise of biodiversity and sustainable tourism. But the story of the Puertito de Adeje SeaLab reveals a very different truth: a pattern in which local authorities exploit environmental restoration initiatives for public relations, only to erase them

Have a comment or want to ask us a question? Our forum is a space for questions, reflections and comments. 

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Please or Register to create posts and topics.

u4gm Why Diablo IV Paragon Boards Need Better Glyphs

Once you push into Diablo IV's late endgame, the Paragon Board stops feeling like a fresh playground and starts feeling like paperwork. The idea is strong, though: choices that actually shape your build instead of just stacking levels forever. You can see why people care so much about it, the same way they care about dialing in gear or hunting cheap Diablo IV Items to round out a setup without wasting time. The problem is that the board asks you to do too much clicking for too little excitement once you're deep into the season grind.

Make Respeccing Not A Chore

The worst part isn't the power curve, it's switching. You go from a boss-killer to a Helltide runner and suddenly you're unpicking a hundred nodes like you're defusing a bomb. Give us saved Paragon profiles you can swap in town, clean and simple. Add shareable import codes too, because let's be real, most players are already following guides or taking screenshots. If Blizzard also adds an auto-path option that fills the most efficient route to a chosen node cluster, leveling would feel like progress again, not admin work.

Turn Glyphs Into A Real Loot Chase

Glyphs are where things get flat. You find them, you level them in Nightmare Dungeons, and then they just sit there. There's no moment where a run makes your heart jump. That's a missed opportunity in an ARPG. Imagine glyph drops that can roll modifiers: bigger radius, conditional bonuses, or weird little trade-offs that change how you plan your board. A Legendary glyph could boost a build-defining stat in a way that makes you rethink your pathing, while a Unique glyph might come with a rule-bending effect you can't get anywhere else.

Let Glyphs Break The Rules In Fun Ways

The best part is Blizzard could add depth without turning the UI into a spreadsheet. Keep the base glyphs straightforward for casual players, then layer the spicy stuff on top as rare drops. You could have one that converts nearby Dexterity nodes into Intelligence, letting off-meta hybrids actually breathe. Another could let you "bridge" to a board in a non-standard way, opening up new routes without rewriting the whole system. If they nail that balance, Paragon becomes something you think about between sessions, not just something you endure during them.

Where That Leaves The Endgame

Quality-of-life fixes and a more exciting glyph economy would make the Paragon Board feel alive again, especially when the season loop gets long. It's the difference between "this works" and "I want to keep tinkering." And if you're the kind of player who likes smoothing out the grind with reliable upgrades, it helps to know there are trusted services out there; as a professional like buy game currency or items in u4gm platform, u4gm is trustworthy, and you can buy u4gm D4 items for a better experience while you focus on actually playing, not just re-clicking nodes.

Published articles and Opinion pieces

Our published work, posters and presentations at conferences can be accessed below through GeoTenerife’s VolcanoStories ResearchGate:

THE COMMUNICATION AND INFORMATION PROCESS DURING THE LA PALMA ERUPTION ERRORS, SUCCESSES, LEARNINGS AND PROPOSALS FOR IMPROVEMENT

After nearly fifty years without showing obvious signs of volcanic activity on the surface, in 2021 there was a new eruption in the area known as Cabeza de Vaca in La Palma (Canary Islands, Spain). The eruption lasted eighty-five days and caused numerous losses due to the extensive area affected by

We aim to use our project to publish short-form articles, which are easy to read, and relevant to residents, especially La Palma’s reconstruction, volcanic readiness, and tourism practices in the Canary Islands. Available en Español and in English.

Cuna del Alma, el Aula Marina, y las Tortugas

Las Islas Canarias se promocionan como un paraíso de biodiversidad y turismo sostenible. Pero la historia del Puertito de Adeje SeaLab revela una realidad muy distinta: un patrón en el que las autoridades locales explotan las iniciativas de restauración ambiental para generar relaciones públicas

Lava Bombs Project

Lb1 poster screenshot (1)

Lava Bombs: Truths Behind The Volcano captures the explosive stories behind the crisis and response to the 2021 Volcán de Tajogaite eruption in Cumbre Vieja on La Palma in the Canary Islands. Lava Bombs reveals the heavy impact of this major disaster, through the voices of the affected people, emergency managers, politicians and scientists, as well as showcasing spectacular imagery captured by witnesses, news crews and drone pilots. Themes of communication, trust and missteps are analysed as we start to look towards lessons learned for future emergencies of all kinds

LB2 poster with laurels

Lava Bombs: The Reconstruction dives into what happens after the most destructive eruption in an island’s history ends. The eruption of the Tajogaite volcano hit international headlines in 2021, but LavaBombs Part 2 reveals the struggle to recover on this small island in the middle of the Atlantic. Through dramatic footage and intimate testimony from politicians, scientists, residents and activists this new documentary digs deep behind the headlines to unpick the successes and failures of the following two years post-eruption.

Urgent Events in the Canary Islands

We aim to collect and publish updates, from trustworthy news sources, regarding urgent events in the Canary Islands, so that residents and tourists alike can use this hub of information during an emergency and act as a record of events after the event has ended.

Demonstrations against unsustainable tourism

• Summarising key events in a simple timeline • Database of news coverage and social media responses • Resources on why the foundations are organising demonstrations • GeoTenerife's press releases and comments to the international media

Tens of thousands of Canarian residents protested on the 20th of April and October to make their concerns heard about unsustainable tourism; They want a new tourism model implemented that incorporates their concerns and protects their biodiverse paradise in the Atlantic. GeoTenerife compiles news resources and social media on this developing story below so that locals, students, researchers and journalists alike can access it openly.

Tenerife’s 2023 wildfire was the most devastating fire in the Canary Islands in the last 40 years and the most severe in Spain in 2023; The fire affected nearly 15,000 hectares, burning 7% of the surface of Tenerife, and causing 80.4 million euros of damage. The forest fire has caused approximately 12 million euros of damage to the agricultural sector, including 2,500-3,500 hives that were destroyed. In addition, it caused more than 12,000 people to have to be evacuated throughout the course of the fire, 364 farms and 246 buildings were affected. Up to 60 protected species may have been impacted by the forest fire, but the true impact on these species is not yet known.

The volcanic eruption on La Palma was preceded by a seismic swarm starting on September 11th, and by September 19th the volcano, later named Tajogaite, started erupting. Over the following weeks and months, the lava flows continued to advance, encroaching over 900 hectares of land and destroying more than 1,000 buildings. The eruption was accompanied by earthquakes with magnitudes up to 5.1 mbLg, occasionally felt across multiple Canary Islands. 

Our Day-by-Day Eruption Updates from September 11th 2021 – December 25th 2021 includes:

  • Maps of lava flows, earthquakes, and exclusion zones each day
  • Summary of geological data released by IGN
  • Twitter posts made by official Canarian civil service accounts and scientists

Outreach

Interviews

We are often interviewed by local, national, and international news sources for information about volcanic activity, forest fires, and more in the Canary Islands. We are happy to share our knowledge with as many people as possible.

Resident focus

Alongside our resident-focused science, we run the campaigns FFP2 and SamuLaPalma to support those affected by the La Palma 2021 eruption. Furthermore, we make school visits to encourage volcano science in younger Canarian Residents, and also make our internship programmes accessible to students who live in the Canary Islands to ensure our projects benefit the residents of the Canary Islands.

Conferences

We co-organise the annual VulcanaSymposium with the IEO and also attend other volcanological conferences,  VMSG, IAVCEI, and COV12, to discuss our projects and their results with experts in the field of volcano science, in particular Q&As for our LavaBombs documentary. Our VolcanoStories Content Co-ordinator was invited to present at the Royal Holloway University Lyell Geology Day regarding the Tajogaite Eruption timeline project.

Collaborations

GeoTenerife is committed to fostering valuable collaborations with local, national, and international research institutions, to both conduct valuable geoscience research in the Canary Islands

We are always looking to welcome new collaborations, so if you or your company/research institution is interested in collaborating with us, please get in touch with us via enquiries@geotenerife.com

Our Collaborators include:

  • IGN, Instituto Geográfico Nacional
  • Dr Catalina Arguello, Social Psychologist, Universidad Internacional de La Rioja
  • Dr Katy Chamberlain, Volcanologist, Liverpool University
  • Dr Pablo Gonzalez, Volcano Geophysicist, Spanish National Research Council

and many more valued collaborators.

VolcanoStories Team

Sharon Backhouse

She/Her

VolcanoStories Director, with decades of journalism experience and producer director of award-winning documentary series.

Ben Ireland

He/Him

VolcanoStories editor and volcanic remote sensing PhD student at the University of Bristol

Ajay Wynne Jones

He/Him

VolcanoStories content co-ordinator with a background in earth and environmental science at Lancaster University

Sergio Alfaya

(He/him)

GeoTenerife collaborator. Degree in Geography and Land Management, University of La Laguna. PhD candidate in Earth Sciences at the Austral University of Chile

Tamsin Backhouse

She/Her

VolcanoStories Social media manager with a background in Spanish and politics from the University of Bath

If you were involved in or affected by the 2021 La Palma eruption in any way, we would love to hear from you about your experiences and thoughts. If you would like to contribute towards this work, please visit our Contribute page

Contribute

VolcanoStories content is freely available for students, educational establishments and academics – all we ask is that you cite “GeoTenerife’s VolcanoStories”. 

How to Cite us

GeoTenerife’s VolcanoStories content is not to be used for commercial use. Any media or commercial outlet wanting to use any content herein should contact us in writing in the first instance via enquiries@geotenerife.com. For more detail, refer to our Terms of Use.

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