Fire and fury in Iceland: tracking volcanic eruptions
Volcanic eruptions in Iceland have fascinated writers for centuries. In 1783 Benjamin Franklin correctly identified the cause of the terrible weather that summer in Europe as caused by an eruption in Iceland, which turned out to be the biggest ever historic eruption. In 1864 Jules Verne based his ‘J...
| Main Author: | |
|---|---|
| Format: | Conference Object |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2020
|
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/5998/ http://eprints.esc.cam.ac.uk/5998/1/266%20White%20Leics%20Lit%20%26%20Phil%20Soc%202020.pdf https://www.leicesterlitandphil.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Vol-114-2020-OCR.pdf |
| Summary: | Volcanic eruptions in Iceland have fascinated writers for centuries. In 1783 Benjamin Franklin correctly identified the cause of the terrible weather that summer in Europe as caused by an eruption in Iceland, which turned out to be the biggest ever historic eruption. In 1864 Jules Verne based his ‘Journey to the Centre of the Earth’ on a presumed volcanic conduit beneath the Icelandic volcano Hekla. In 2014 we were fortunate to capture the largest eruption in Iceland since 1783, this time with modern instrumentation. We were able to track the molten rock as it travelled underground for 50 km at a depth of about 6 km before erupting in central Iceland, using the 50,000 tiny earthquakes it generated as it cracked its way forwards. This was one of the first times in the world that molten rock has been captured with such detail in the act of propagating underground. |
|---|