#Iceland #WSJ #Volcano
A volcano in southwest Iceland erupted after weeks of intense earthquake activity and the evacuation of thousands from the area. The Reykjanes Peninsula is experiencing a fissure eruption instead of an explosive eruption, where lava is basically oozing from cracks in the ground. This runny magma can severely damage infrastructure as it can widely spread across the landscape.
WSJ explains the science of fissure eruptions and the particular dangers they pose to the Reykjanes Peninsula in Iceland.
Photo: Civil Protection of Iceland/Reuters
0:00 Situation in Iceland
0:28 Explosive vs. fissure eruptions
2:05 Iceland’s volcanic history
3:25 What’s next?
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#Iceland #Volcano #WSJ
These are some of the scenes in the reckonist peninsula of Iceland after a volcanic eruption began expelling lava in the region this style of eruption differs somewhat from the kind of popular culture explosions that you might see here’s why this eruption looks so different and what threats it
Poses Iceland is home to more than one 130 volcanoes across more than 30 volcanic systems and right now lava is erupting out of the sareni volcanic system located in the reckonist peninsula of Southwest Iceland in a traditional volcano the volcanic material funnels through a central vent typically like in those volcanoes that
You ideate in Hollywood where there is a mountain and a conical Peak and the summit and the everything like flows out of the summit whether that’s an ash boom that explodes explosively into the sky or whether the lava comes up and out of the center and like leaks down the side
Of the mountain here it’s not like that instead in this type of eruption known as a Fisher eruption lava basically oozes from cracks in the ground and the type of lava typically involved in these two kinds of eruptions also looks different an explosive eruption is often due to viscous sticky magma that doesn’t
Flow easily while a Fisher eruption pushes out fluid and runny magma that spreads across the landscape the big danger with these is that these these lava flows can spread out quite a long way and obviously as we’re seeing uh in Iceland right now that poses a threat to
Both the infrastructure in the region and people’s lives the eruption from the speni volcanic system occurred near grindvik an Icelandic fishing town the surrounding area is home to a major airport one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions the Blue Lagoon and a power plant that provides
Hot water for the majority of the peninsula eruptions in this part of Iceland have been increasing steadily in recent years after a very long dormant period this is just an area of Iceland that goes through these periodic eras of on andof eruption activity and then quesence so like around a millennia or
So the peninsula is quiet you don’t see volcanic activity and then it starts up and then that era of volcanic activity lasts for centuries Iceland sits on top of the aasian and North American tectonic plates making it a hot bed of seismic and volcanic activity when the tectonic plates slip past one another
Earthquakes occur and as the plates spread apart magma can leak up to the surface generating volcanic eruptions the focus of sort of monitoring efforts of volcanic systems is around trying to identify as early as possible any precursory signals that sort of come before the onset of an eruption and in
Instances like what we’re seeing in Iceland uh these eruptions are typically heralded by the sort of really high levels of seismic activity to try and really tell us where there might be uh an eruption and sort of where ongoing intrusions are are going it remains to
Be seen how the lava erupting from the sparten volcanic system will impact residents in the surrounding area but the risk of volcanic activity also comes with benefits for the Icelandic Community every expert from Iceland who I spoke with was very proud of the fact that the country uses their volcanoes in
A constructive way they harness geothermal energy from them to generate electricity and heat their water and Heat their homes and they don’t need to buy oil to do those things because they’re exploiting their vol Volos basically but of course the trade-off there is in order to exploit them best
You have to be close to them and if you’re close to them eventually an eruption will threaten homes threaten towns and cities and with risks come Benefits
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