Scientists monitoring the behavior of Iceland's volcanoes have made a very disturbing discovery. One of the volcanoes may be waking up and may explode in the future. Ten years ago another Icelandic volcano literally crippled life in Europe and stopped air traffic due to the large amount of ash in the atmosphere.
Iceland's volcanoes pose a significant risk to the European continent. This is evidenced by the event of March 21, 2010, when the volcano Eyjafjallajökull awakened. The second and approximately twenty times stronger eruption occurred three weeks later. This explosion literally paralyzed air traffic over Europe, as huge amounts of volcanic ash entered the atmosphere.
In the first few days, as many as 140 million cubic meters of volcanic material escaped into the atmosphere, leaving ash as high as nine kilometers. The volcano crater is located below Iceland's fifth largest glacier, Eyjafallajökull, in a relatively remote and sparsely populated area in the south of the island, about 120 kilometers from Reykjavik's capital.
The entire Iceland is of volcanic origin and is dotted with more than 140 volcanoes identified, of which about thirty are considered active. Scientists therefore closely monitor these active volcanoes to better predict their behavior. One of them has now found a very strange behavior that may indicate that the volcano is waking up.
Researchers have been observing volcanic activity in the Reykjanes Peninsula area southwest of Iceland's capital since late January. In less than three months, seismological devices in this area have experienced nearly nine thousand shocks. The soil has also risen up to ten centimeters in some places, indicating that molten rocks are scouring to the surface.
According to seismologists, this volcanic area seems to be reviving after hundreds of years of rest. According to the records, the last major eruption occurred in this area about eight centuries ago. According to experts, there are five volcanic systems that wake up to activity once every thousand years.
