First Evidence Of Under-Ice Volcanoes In Antarctica

An anonymous reader writes "The first evidence of a volcanic eruption from beneath Antarctica's ice sheet has been discovered by members of the British Antarctic Survey. The volcano on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet began erupting some 2,000 years ago and remains active to this day. Using airborne ice-sounding radar, scientists discovered a layer of ash produced by a 'subglacial' volcano. It extends across an area larger than Wales."

Comments

will accelerate melting at some point

[Anonymous Coward]

This is very bad news (tm).

There is a quite thick layer of soot and ash trapped inside the glacier. At some point when the glacier melts enough, that whole layer becomes visible and thus the reflection of sunlight from the glacier surface diminishes. And the melting speed increases dramatically. To make things worse, the layer will stay there for some time as it is bit warmer than the ice and so it bores small holes where to stay put instead of getting flushed away.

And don't get me started on that active volcano under glacier. How it will react when the weight of the glacier eases rapidly? Possible earthquakes and that means tsunami.

Funny thing, a Finnish author named Risto Isomäki has written a hard scifi book about the subject only couple of years ago. It's called the sands of Sarasvati.