[Strategerist]

There was recently an article from the Times of India http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1363496/posts about perhaps as many as 5,000 volcanoes being currently active in the Pacific. The article was treated derisively by the standard geologist naysayers on FR.

The article you mention was NOT from "The Times of India", an old and respectable source

It was from "India Daily" an apparently months-old webpage source specializing in fabricated stories designed to get web hits from apocalyptikook morons. These are the same people who reported on a hidden underground UFO base in the Himalayas.

It's astonishing that anyone with the brainpower to actually figure out how to make a post on FR could give credence to a "science" article like the "India Daily" one that doesn't cite a single scientist and heads the article with a fake graph purportedly showing underwater volcanoes going from 0 a few years ago to 8,000 now. (Helpful hint; the number of underwater volcanoes was NOT Zero when the graph purports they were.)

Yet, here's an earlier article indicating more active volcanoes, if I'm understanding it right.

You're not reading it right. It's a good article, about several underwater volcanoes that have been long known; I've been aware of Kavachi and Loihi for years. RESEARCH on underwater volcanism has exploded in the last few years, particularly deep on mid-ocean ridges (Kavachi and Loihi don't fall into that category, though); there's been no increase in underwater volcanoes.

Certainly interesting times in the Pacific ring of fire, in any case.

Looks pretty run-of-the-mill to me. Large earthquakes world-wide are really running well below average this year, again, too. No large volcanic eruptions for a long time, either.

[Quix]

I later found essentially, if not identically the same article on the TIMES OF INDIA's website . . . as best as I can recall. I'm fairly certain of it. I'll try and go check now.

[Boot Hill]

"It's astonishing that anyone with the brainpower to actually figure out how to make a post on FR could give credence to a "science" article like the "India Daily" one that doesn't cite a single scientist and heads the article with a fake graph purportedly showing underwater volcanoes going from 0 a few years ago to 8,000 now."

Damn well said Stratergerist, good call. Having that other thread (in fact both of those that you mentioned) posted here on the pages of FR was nothing short of an embarrassment. I loved that graph they added, it must have taken them all of 3 minutes on Excel to crank out that silliness. But then you and I must be those that Quix labeled in #6 as "snooty freeper naysayers".

--Boot Hill