Every volcano on Earth, on one globe
Volcano Alert puts the whole Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program catalogue — 2,666 volcanoes — on a 3D globe you can spin, with each one coloured by its current alert level. Alongside it sit the three feeds that tell you what is actually happening right now: USGS alert levels, volcanic ash advisories from the VAACs, and the Smithsonian/USGS Weekly Volcanic Activity Report.
- Map — the full catalogue on a 3D globe, markers coloured by alert level, with M4.5+ earthquakes from the past week as an optional layer
- Activity — live elevated alert levels, current ash advisories, and this week's activity report, merged into one list
- Browse — search and filter the whole catalogue, or see what is near you
- Watchlist — watch any volcano and get a notification when its status changes
- Detail — photograph and summary, merged live status, facts, a mini map, and every earthquake within 50 km over the past 30 days
- Offline — the world map downloads to the phone on first launch; feeds, photos and earthquake data are all cached
It works when the signal does not
A world base map is downloaded to your device automatically the first time you open the app — about 50 MB — so the globe still draws with no connection at all. Any volcano you are interested in can have its own detailed map area downloaded on top of that, at street-level zoom, for the times you are actually near one.
The data does the same. The alert feed, the advisories, the photographs and the earthquake lists are all kept on the phone after they are fetched, and shown with the time they were last updated so you always know how old what you are looking at is. When the app cannot reach the network it says so plainly and keeps showing you the last good data, rather than showing you nothing.
Where the information comes from
The volcano catalogue is the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program's. Alert levels come from the USGS, ash advisories from the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centres, and the weekly report is the joint Smithsonian/USGS bulletin. Earthquakes come straight from the USGS. Our server merges the first three into a single feed every fifteen minutes so the app does not have to.
Alert levels
- Normal — typical background activity
- Advisory — elevated unrest above known background
- Watch — heightened unrest, or an eruption underway with limited hazards
- Warning — a hazardous eruption is imminent, underway or suspected
These are the USGS volcano alert levels, used here as published.
Private by design
There is no account and no sign-in. Your watchlist and settings stay on your device, alert notifications are generated on the device rather than pushed from a server, and the optional "near me" location read never leaves the phone. There is no analytics, advertising or tracking code in the app.