As the chat wrapped up, Karson wanted to make sure that the eruptions and disruption were kept in perspective. With the recent spate of major earthquakes, some people have been wondering whether the planet is in an especially active state. It's not. These things go on all the time, Karson said, but they're often under water or in distant regions where the impact goes unnoticed. The difference is mostly that recent events have taken place where people are more aware of it. "We take for granted that air travel just happens," Karson said. "The earth is an active planet, and we need to work around things like this.
via arstechnica.com
The article itself is on the Icelandic volcano that erupted earlier this week, and why it created such a large plume of ash, which is interesting in itself. I found it even more interesting that Karson is of the opinion that all the earthquakes we've seen recently aren't special, they just happened to happen in populated areas. Admittedly, looking at the records for earthquakes around the world (on the USGS quake site) has gotten me wondering about that as well.