False Hekla Volcano Eruption Reports Cause Undue Concern

As European airspace continues to reel as the Eyjafjallajokull eruption continues to affect air travel, news this morning after an MSNBC Twitter feed tweeted about a second Icelandic volcano, Hekla, erupting. The MSNBC Twitter feed @BreakingNews tweeted:

"Large plume indicates second Icelandic volcano, Hekla, has begun erupting - watch live http://bit.ly/9iNfKE." The feed later issued a correction, but the tweet was retweeted more than 600 times.

At the same time, however, even without an eruption from the Hekla volcano, scientists are warning that global warming may cause more volcanic eruptions. The effects would be seen, papers by the Royal Society theorize, when the weight of the glacial ice above a volcano would be removed, freeing magma from deep below ground.

Additionally, Carolina Pagli, a geophysicist at the University of Leeds in England, and Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a vulcanologist at the University of Iceland, wrote a 2008 paper in the scientific journal Geophysical Research Letters about possible links between global warming and Icelandic volcanoes. Pagli said:

"The effects would be biggest with ice-capped volcanoes. If you remove a load that is big enough you will also have an effect at depths on magma production."

Sigmundsson said, "Our work suggests that eventually there will be either somewhat larger eruptions or more frequent eruptions in Iceland in coming decades. Global warming melts ice and this can influence magmatic systems." He suggested that the end of the Ice Age 10,000 years ago aligned with a spike in volcanic activity in Iceland, due to melting of huge ice sheets.

Written by Michael Santo
HULIQ.com

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