By: Sandy Wang
Lightning erupts from its mouth, and smoke bellows into the sky, turning day into night. People scream as streams of fire slowly creep towards them. And no, it isn’t some demonic monster from a horror movie that is causing all of this, it’s a volcanic eruption.
For the eighth time since March 2021, residents of Iceland prepared for a volcanic eruption after the Icelandic Meteorological Office issued a warning on July 30. Recently, Iceland’s volcanoes are much more active than usual. “We’re going through a volcanic crisis,” said Matthew J. Roberts, the managing director of the Icelandic Meteorological Office. “This is perhaps the most intense period of volcanic activity affecting an urban environment at the moment.”
On average, Iceland’s volcanoes usually erupt every three to four years, compared with the nearly monthly eruptions happening right now. However, as Christopher Kilburn, a professor of volcanology at the University College London, says, “It’s not unusual to have an eruption where it’s now happening. It’s just been a long time since it last happened. But in the grand scheme of evolution of the country, it’s within normal behavior.”
Despite eruptions happening more frequently now, experts say that there most likely will not be widespread impact, only local risks. “We’re able to forecast eruptions with considerable accuracy,” Dr. Roberts said in a New York Times article written by reporter Sarah Hurtes. “And we see they’re only hazardous locally. They don’t pose a problem to the rest of the country.”
In 2021, a new volcanic zone opened, and scientists expect for it to have small eruptions every couple of months. “This is a bit of a challenge because you can imagine that 800 years ago, no people were living in that portion of Iceland,” said Luca Caricchi, a geoscientist studying volcanoes at the University of Geneva in Switzerland. “Now, there’s a community. And the record shows that these eruptions can continue for tens of years or centuries.”
Link to Article: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/07/31/world/europe/iceland-volcano-eruption.html