WANT to know where a rumbling volcano is likely to split at the seams? Look for the tallest and greenest plants.
Vigorous plant growth on the flanks of a volcano like that at Rabaul, Papua New Guinea (above), can indicate where magma is most likely to spurt out. Satellite images reveal that shrubs and trees grow taller and greener along stripes where the volcano eventually ruptures.
Nicolas Houlié from the University of California, Berkeley, and his colleagues studied satellite images of Mount Etna in Sicily and Mount Nyiragongo in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. When they compared before and…
