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Tremors Around Iceland’s Katla Volcano (A Bigger Eyjafjallajökull) Reported
Remember Eyjafjallajökull? The Icelandic volcano that was hilariously mispronounced by every non-Icelandic news reporter but wreaked grim havoc with airlines and airports?
Well, Katla, the more bigger (its magma chamber is easily ten times bigger than the one in Eyjafjallajökull) and easily pronounceable volcano supposedly named after an evil, mythological troll, could produce such disruptive havoc on a bigger scale..funnily enough, in a similar manner to an Internet troll.
When Eyjafjallajökull erupted in 2010, many were worried that Read more…
EcoAlert –Iceland’s Laki Volcano may be Poised for a Massive Historic Eruption
What if one of the largest volcanic eruptions in recent history happened today? A new study suggests that a blast akin to the Laki eruption that devastated Iceland in the 1780s would waft noxious gases southwestward and kill tens of thousands of people in Europe. And in a modern world that is intimately connected by air traffic and international trade, economic activity across much of Europe, including the production and import of food, could plummet. At least four Laki-sized eruptions have occurred in Iceland in the past 1,150 years.
From June of 1783 until February of 1784, the Laki volcano in south-central Iceland erupted, spewing an estimated 122 million metric tons of Read more…
‘Ice Wars’ heating up the Arctic
Editor’s note: CNN correspondent Kaj Larsen recently visited the Arctic to observe the U.S. naval exercise known as ICEX. His experience is part of the CNN documentary “Ice Wars,” which will air at 8 p.m. ET Sunday on CNN Presents.
(CNN) — On a small, floating piece of ice in the Beaufort Sea, several hundred miles north of Alaska, a group of scientists are documenting what some dub an “Arctic meltdown.”
According to climate scientists, the warming of the region is shrinking the polar ice cap at an alarming rate, reducing the permafrost layer and wreaking havoc on polar bears, arctic foxes and other indigenous wildlife in the region.
What is bad for the animals, though, has been good for commerce.
The recession of the sea ice and the reduction in permafrost — combined with advances in technology — have allowed access to oil, mineral and natural gas deposits that were previously trapped in the ice.
The abundance of these valuable resources and the opportunity to exploit them has created a Read more…
Ash Cloud Spreads From Erupting Nabro Volcano In Eritrea
The Anabro (Nabro) volcano in the Northern Red Sea Region of Eritrea has erupted sending an ash plume more than 13.5 kilometres into the sky and disrupting air traffic across eastern Africa.
Part of the Afar Triangle, the stratovolcano is one of many volcanic caldera complexes in the north easternmost part of the East African Rift valley region. Nabro is located in the Danakil Depression, close to Eritrea’s border with Ethiopia and north of Djibouti, and has not erupted in at least 150 years. It is the most prominent of 3 large volcanoes (Nabro, Dubbi, Mallahle) in the region, each containing a large summit caldera.
The volcano erupted at 2103 GMT Sunday evening. The Volcanic Ash Advisory Center (VAAC) said Monday that the 5,331 ft volcano has resulted in a large ash plume of up to 13.5 kilometres (8 miles) high. The scale of the eruption, compared to the ongoing eruption in Chile and 2010′s eruption at Eyjafjallajökull in Read more…
Volcano expert fears we’ll see a super eruption
Volcanologist Clive Oppenheimer yesterday warned there was a one-in-500 chance of the world being hit by a super- volcano this century.
The reader in vulcanology at Cambridge University told a Hay audience: “That might not sound like much, but it is a lot more likely than an asteroid impact.
“The events in Japan remind us that you can have a tsunami and earthquake and a nuclear plant there as well and you can have these chain reaction events that are actually quite calamitous and they are not unimaginable.”
Examining geological, historical and archeological records, the expert took the audience on a journey back to three volcanic eruptions that have shaken the world – the 1815 Tambora volcano in Indonesia that Read more…
Flights out of Scotland cancelled as ash cloud from Iceland volcano ‘will drift over UK within hours’
A Scottish airline has cancelled 36 flights tomorrow as the ash cloud billowing from a volanco in Iceland approaches UK airspace.
Regional carrier Loganair, which flies out of Glasgow, announced that there would be no flights following a Civil Aviation Authority warning that disruption could not be ruled out.
The Met Office is predicting the plume of ash from the Grimsvotn volcano will begin to drift over parts of Scotland in the next few hours and would cover all of Ireland, Scotland and parts of northern Britain by 6am tomorrow.
Asked whether this would cause some disruption to flights, a CAA spokesman said: ‘That’s the way it’s looking certainly at the moment.’
William Hague, however, has said he does not predict the volcano will not cause the chaos seen a year ago. The Foreign Secretary has said that Britain has more information on how ash clouds move and is less likely to have to enforce a blanket flight ban.
Last April airports across the UK were shut down for five days. With school half-term holidays next week any disruption to UK airports would cause chaos for hundreds of thousands of families.
Drifting apart: Amazing underwater photos that show the growing gap between two tectonic plates
Swimming through an area of extreme natural beauty, this diver surveys the underwater canyons on his either side.
But this British scuba diver is actually between two tectonic plates.
Alex Mustard, 36, dived 80ft into the crevice between the North American and Eurasian plates near Iceland to capture these spectacular photos.
Shinmoedake volcano erupts in Japan
A volcano in southwestern Japan erupted Sunday after nearly two weeks of relative silence, sending ash and rocks up to four kilometres (two and a half miles) into the air, a local official says.
It was not immediately clear if the eruption was a direct result of the massive 8.9-magnitude earthquake that rocked northern areas Friday, unleashing a fierce tsunami and sparking fears that more than 10,000 may have been killed.
The 1,421-metre (4,689-feet) Shinmoedake volcano in the Kirishima range saw its first major eruption for 52 years in January. There had not been any major activity at the site since March 1.
Authorities have maintained a volcano warning at a level of three out of five, restricting access to the entire mountain.
In April last year, the eruption of the Eyjafjoell volcano in Iceland dispersed a vast cloud of ash, triggering a huge shutdown of airspace that affected more than 100,000 flights and eight million passengers.
Iceland hit by 400 earthquakes in 24 hour, Krisuvik volcano show activity
After four days of continues earthquake activity it appears that Krísuvík volcano has stepped up it’s activity by a order of magnitude. Since midnight there have been over 400 earthquakes in Krísuvík volcano. The activity is continuing when this is written and does not show any signs of slowing down at this moment. Geologist in Iceland are expecting more earthquakes in this area over the next hours and even earthquakes that are larger then ML3.0 in size.
Earthquake location 27 Feb 15:40 GMT
The largest earthquakes where ML3.3 and ML3.7 in size. This is automatic size by the SIL system. The depth of the earthquakes was 4.7 km and 1.1 km according to the automatic SIL system. Due to high number of earthquakes the SIL system is putting earthquakes down all around the Reykjanes Peninsula. While there might be some earthquakes there, the number is not nearly as high as can be seen on the map. The earthquakes can be located by there low quality number.
Given the location and how this earthquake swarm is behaving by opinion of jonfr.com (Iceland volcano and earthquake blog) that this is due to a magma is pushing up the crust in this area. It remains a question of this is going to start a eruption or not. But the chances are growing for as long as this earthquake pattern holds up in Krísuvík volcano. If a eruption starts in Krísuvík volcano it is going to one of Hawaii type eruption, unless it is Read more…
Norway, Sweden Work to Contain Oil Spill
STOCKHOLM—The Norwegian Coastal Administration said Friday the large leakage of oil from the Icelandic container vessel Godafoss had been stopped.
At a press conference Friday afternoon, Kystverket said it had not yet been able to evaluate the full extent of the spill, although it is known to have reached the coast of Fredrikstad, southern Norway.
Coast guards from Norway and Sweden have been co-operating to manage the spill the after the vessel ran aground late Thursday.
Ragnhild Bussqvist, duty officer at Kustbevakningen, the Swedish coast guard, told Dow Jones Newswires one of its aircraft had detected a 2.5-kilometer oil stain in the area.
Johan Marius Ly, emergency department director at Kystverket, said some oil had hit the Read more…
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