Morning Volcanoes

Io has 266 active volcanic hotspots linked by a global magma ocean.

Scrolls covered in ash after the Vesuvius eruption are now:

…the subject of the monumental Vesuvius Challenge, an ongoing competition to use machine learning and computer imaging technologies to read the ancient texts. Scientists have discovered a way to digitally unroll the scrolls using X-ray tomography and ink detection, producing a viewable 3D scan that reveals the writing without damaging the physical object. The competition, in turn, will award $700,000 to anyone who can discern a substantial portion of the text, at least four passages each with more than 140 characters.

With 79 days to go, this part of the competition is still ongoing, although a 21-year-old college student has already deciphered one word. Luke Farritor “became the first person in two millennia to see an entire word from within an unopened scroll this August,” the challenge says, and that word is porphyras, which translates to “purple.” This color is incredibly rare in texts from antiquity, making it an even more exciting finding and boosting intrigue about the rest of the scroll.

The volcanic island of Surtsey, which formed by submarine eruption in 1963 off the Icelandic coast, has exercised a strong hold over artists’ imagination. Two who have visited the uninhabited and strictly restricted island with scientists are participating in this show: Anna Líndal and Þorgerður Ólafsdóttir. In the Subterranean section of the exhibition, Líndal’s multidisciplinary project Mapping Underwater Microbial Colonization (commissioned for the festival) relates to the discovery of life far beneath the basalt rock surface. Líndal accompanied scientists on a drilling expedition to Surtsey in 2017, where colonies of microorganisms were discovered at a depth of 213 feet. Lindal was inspired to create a series of artworks that gave material form to these invisible microbes.