50 Fun Facts About Philippine Volcanoes

Mayon Volcano stands in which Philippine province?

It is the highest point in the whole Bicol Region and the centrepiece of the Albay Biosphere Reserve declared by UNESCO in 2016.

Mayon is famous worldwide for which physical feature?

It is one of the most symmetrical volcanic cones on Earth and is regarded as sacred in Philippine mythology.

How tall is Mayon, rising from the shores of Albay Gulf?

That is about 8,081 feet, reached from sea level only about 10 km away.

In 1938 Mayon and its surroundings became the Philippines' first what?

It was reclassified as the Mayon Volcano Natural Park in 2000 and is now being nominated as a World Heritage Site.

How many cities and municipalities share Mayon's cone 'like slices of a pie'?

Legazpi, Daraga, Camalig, Guinobatan, Ligao, Tabaco, Malilipot and Santo Domingo all meet at the summit on the map.

Mayon's most destructive eruption, in February 1814, buried which town?

About 1,200 people died; only the church belfry still pokes above the ground at the Cagsawa Ruins in Daraga.

Roughly how many people died in the town buried by the 1814 eruption?

PHIVOLCS counts it as the deadliest eruption in Mayon's history; its ash may have helped cause 1816's Year Without a Summer.

The 1814 Mayon eruption is thought to have contributed, with Tambora, to which global event?

Atmospheric ash from Mayon and Indonesia's Tambora in 1815 chilled 1816 across the Northern Hemisphere.

In what year was Mayon's first historically recorded eruption?

The first eruption with an extended account was a six-day event in July 1766; it has erupted over 52 times in 500 years.

Mayon's longest uninterrupted eruption, in 1897, lasted how many days?

It killed 100 people in Santo Domingo with steam, falling debris and hot rocks.

Which 2006 typhoon triggered Mayon lahars that killed at least 1,266 people?

Heavy rain remobilized ash and boulders from the eruption earlier that year on November 30, 2006.

A 2013 phreatic eruption on Mayon killed five climbers, three of them from which country?

The others were a Spaniard living in Germany and a Filipino guide; the May 7 blast came without warning.

According to legend, Mayon is named after which princess-heroine?

Her name means 'Beautiful Lady'; the volcano is said to have grown from the grave of Magayon and her lover Panganoron.

PHIVOLCS monitors Mayon from a provincial headquarters on which rise near Legazpi?

It sits about 12 km from the summit; Legazpi, south of the volcano, is the Bicol Region's transport hub.

The ruins of the church buried in 1814 belonged to which religious order?

Rebuilt in 1724, it was destroyed with the town on February 1, 1814, and now sits in a park in Daraga.

Taal Volcano lies in which province, about 50 km south of Manila?

Its northern caldera rim actually sits in Tagaytay, Cavite, which is why that city has the famous views.

Where have all of Taal's 39 recorded historical eruptions occurred?

The 5-km island covers about 23 square kilometres and is a Permanent Danger Zone where settlement is prohibited.

Taal Lake sits inside a caldera roughly how wide?

Explosive prehistoric eruptions formed it, one of them ejecting an estimated 144 cubic kilometres of material.

What is Vulcan Point?

It makes a famous nesting-doll geography: an island in a lake on an island in a lake on an island.

Taal's Main Crater Lake was created by which eruption?

Before 1911 the crater floor was higher than Taal Lake and held several small lakes of different colours.

Taal's greatest recorded eruption, lasting about six months, came in what year?

It ran from May 15 to December 12 and blocked the Pansipit River, cutting the lake's only outlet to the sea.

Which lakeshore town did Augustinian friars found in 1572, the year of the first recorded eruption?

The town stood on the lakeshore at what is now San Nicolas; it later moved and is today a heritage town famed for balisong knives.

Taal's 1965 eruption shifted activity to a new centre called what?

The phreatomagmatic blast sliced off part of the island, and an American geologist recognized 'base surge' there for the first time.

Which cinder cone on Taal, visible from Tagaytay Ridge, erupted in 1707 and 1715?

Its name means 'Giant Leg'; the smaller Binintiang Munti on the island's western tip had minor eruptions in 1709 and 1729.

Because of its history and nearby population, Taal was designated a what?

The programme singles out volcanoes worth close study to prevent disasters; Taal's recorded death toll is about 6,000.

Taal Lake's saltwater turned fresh after 1754, producing which endemic sardine?

Sardinella tawilis is the world's only freshwater sardine; the lake also has a freshwater trevally called maliputo.

Taal Lake is home to one of the world's rarest what, the freshwater Hydrophis semperi?

It is one of only two true sea snake species known to live entirely in fresh water; bull sharks were wiped out there by the 1930s.

On what date in 2020 did Taal begin erupting, after 43 quiet years?

The phreatomagmatic blast sent ash over Calabarzon and Metro Manila and temporarily dried up the Main Crater Lake.

How high did PHIVOLCS raise Taal’s alert status on the first evening of the 2020 eruption?

Level 4 means a hazardous explosive eruption is possible within hours to days; the tephra column reached 10 to 15 km.

Ashfall from the 2020 Taal eruption reached as far north as which Metro Manila cities?

Frequent volcanic lightning lit the column; Mandaluyong recorded the worst air quality in the metro afterwards.

What happened to Taal’s Main Crater Lake right after the 2020 eruption began?

Typhoon rains refilled it by March 2020, making Vulcan Point an island once again.

The Tagaytay viewpoint over Taal takes its name from a Tagalog word meaning what?

The city sits on Tagaytay Ridge in Cavite, whose forests once supplied lumber for the Manila galleons.

Pinatubo's June 15, 1991 eruption was the 20th century's second-largest after which one?

Rated VEI-6, it coincided with Typhoon Yunya, which turned falling ash into a deadly wet cement.

Pinatubo sits on the tripoint of Zambales, Tarlac and which third province?

Before 1991 most people were unaware of its eruptive history; dense forest and Aeta villages covered its slopes.

By roughly how much did global temperatures drop after Pinatubo's 1991 eruption?

The blast pumped 20 million tonnes of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere and temporarily worsened ozone depletion.

Which US military installation lay just 14 km east of Pinatubo’s summit in 1991?

Lahars later washed right through the base; Subic Bay was 37 km to the south.

What was the main cause of the more than 840 deaths in the 1991 Pinatubo eruption?

Typhoon rain soaked the ashfall; rain-fed lahars went on harming far more people for years afterwards.

After 1991, the collapsed summit caldera filled with rain to form what?

The caldera is about 2.5 km across; its west wall collapsed in 2002, sending 160 million cubic metres of water into the Maraunot River.

Kanlaon, the most active volcano in the Visayas, stands on which island?

At 2,465 m it is the highest peak in the Visayas and has erupted more than 40 times since 1819.

Which is the highest mountain in the Philippines, a dormant stratovolcano at 2,954 m?

It rises on the border of Davao City, Davao del Sur and Cotabato and has no known historical eruptions.

Hibok-Hibok, whose 1951 eruption killed over 3,000 people, is on which island province?

The disaster led directly to the creation of the Commission on Volcanology in 1952, forerunner of PHIVOLCS.

Bulusan, the fourth most active Philippine volcano, is in which Bicol province?

It lies 70 km southeast of Mayon on the rim of the Irosin caldera and has erupted 15 times since 2016.

As of 2018, how many Philippine volcanoes does PHIVOLCS list as active?

Active generally means erupted within the last 600 years with documented accounts, or within the Holocene.

PHIVOLCS is a service agency of which Philippine government department?

COMVOL was restructured into PHIVOLC in 1982 and absorbed PAGASA's seismology arm in 1984.

Didicas, an active volcanic island in Cagayan province, did what in 1952?

The submarine volcano had first breached the surface in 1857; it lies 22 km northeast of Camiguin in the Babuyan Islands.

Which isolated Central Luzon volcano later hid Hukbalahap guerrillas on its slopes?

The 1,026 m peak rises alone from Central Luzon's farmland and is classed as potentially active.

Mount Makiling, a dormant volcano with hot springs, is administered as a forest reserve by whom?

The 1,090 m mountain in Laguna and Batangas is linked in folklore to the guardian spirit Maria Makiling.

Mount Banahaw, a three-peaked volcano popular with pilgrims, straddles Laguna and which province?

Many Filipinos regard it as a holy mountain; a past mudflow destroyed the town of Sariaya below it.

Mount Iriga in Camarines Sur, known for phreatic blasts, erupted in 1642 and which earlier year?

Also called Mount Asog, it sits about a kilometre from Lake Buhi.

The Ring of Fire that the Philippines sits on holds roughly what share of the world's volcanoes?

The 40,000 km belt around the Pacific contains between 750 and 915 active or dormant volcanoes.