Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program

Use in your agent

Load a Smithsonian GVP volcano sample into pandas and Parquet. Checked against the provider's documentation on Nov 1, 2026.

Access

• No account or key. The public WFS supports platform-independent GetFeature requests.
• The provider permits personal, educational and other non-commercial use; commercial use requires prior written permission.

Request

curl 'https://webservices.volcano.si.edu/geoserver/GVP-VOTW/ows?service=WFS&version=1.0.0&request=GetFeature&typeName=GVP-VOTW%3ASmithsonian_VOTW_Holocene_Volcanoes&maxFeatures=100&outputFormat=application%2Fjson'

Format

GeoJSON FeatureCollection with point geometry and volcano number, name, landform, type, last eruption year, country, region, summary, coordinates, elevation, tectonic setting and rock type.

Load into pandas and Parquet

Needs Python 3 with requests, pandas and pyarrow.

"""Smithsonian GVP sample of 100 Holocene volcanoes -> pandas -> Parquet. No key."""
import requests
import pandas as pd

URL = "https://webservices.volcano.si.edu/geoserver/GVP-VOTW/ows"
PARAMS = {
    "service": "WFS",
    "version": "1.0.0",
    "request": "GetFeature",
    "typeName": "GVP-VOTW:Smithsonian_VOTW_Holocene_Volcanoes",
    "maxFeatures": 100,
    "outputFormat": "application/json",
}
r = requests.get(URL, params=PARAMS, timeout=60)
r.raise_for_status()
features = r.json()["features"]
df = pd.DataFrame([feature["properties"] for feature in features])
df["geometry_type"] = [feature["geometry"]["type"] for feature in features]
df["geometry_coordinates"] = [str(feature["geometry"]["coordinates"]) for feature in features]
df.to_parquet("smithsonian_gvp_holocene_volcanoes.parquet", index=False)
print(len(df), "volcanoes", df["Country"].nunique(), "countries",
      "last eruption years", int(df["Last_Eruption_Year"].min()), "to",
      int(df["Last_Eruption_Year"].max()))

Run by us on 2026-11-01 (python 3.13.5 | pandas 3.1.0 | pyarrow 26.0.0 | requests 2.34.2). Result: 100 volcanoes 20 countries last eruption years -8300 to 2026

Limits

• Rate limit: Not stated.
• The example deliberately sets maxFeatures to 100; this is the sample size, not a stated service cap.
• Previous database versions are not available.

Quirks

• The service exposes separate layers for Holocene volcanoes, Pleistocene volcanoes and Holocene eruptions.
• GeoJSON coordinates are geometry fields; the response also repeats latitude and longitude in feature properties.
• Store the database version and retrieval date because records are revised and old versions are unavailable.

Terms and attribution

• Personal, educational and other non-commercial use is permitted with the provider's citation and notices preserved.
• Commercial use requires prior written permission from the Smithsonian or the applicable content owner.

Sources

• https://volcano.si.edu/database/webservices.cfm: “GVP is using GeoServer software to provide WFS webservices”
• https://volcano.si.edu/database/webservices.cfm: “the WFS options do allow retrieval using CSV, GML, GeoJSON, KML, and Shapefile formats.”
• https://volcano.si.edu/gvp_termsofuse.cfm: “You may not use the Content for commercial purposes.”
• https://volcano.si.edu/gvp_termsofuse.cfm: “The database compilation is a product of employees of the United States”