This year will go down on record, as seeing the most volcanic eruptions recorded in modern history. The previous number was set in 2010, at 82 volcanic eruptions for the year. The number of volcanoes erupting across the planet has been steadily rising from a meager number of just 55 recorded in 1990.
 
While most scientists may readily dismiss any significance to the latest figures and may be quick to say the planet is just experiencing normal geological activity, it does raise other concerns about just what may be transpiring within the interior of our planet.
 
The average number of volcanic eruptions per year should be about 50 to 60; as of December 5, 2013, we already at 83. Volcanic eruptions are one way the planet dissipates a dangerous build-up of heat, magma, and pressurized gases. The planet’s outer core is thought to flirt with critical temperatures in the range of around 4400 °C (8000 °F). Any rise or major fluctuation in interior gradient could have profound and disruptive effects on processes whose very properties are government by convective heat emanating from the planet’s outer core: magnetic field propagation, tectonic plate movements, sea-floor spreading mechanics, and mantle plume activity.
 
Mantle plumes or hotspots are thought to be the central mechanism which fuels the vast underground chambers of many of the world’s supervolcanoes.