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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."
everyone was blaming global warming for the melting of the icecaps...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
Then that really is a mighty volcano! What next, a volcano with an area larger than 100 elephants?
There are thousands of volcanoes elsewhere on the globe I don't see why antarctic would be any different. I understand before we never had any proof and that is why it is news but I wouldn't say it is Earth shaking news.
How long before people start claiming these as being the source of the melting ice caps?
+1 IDisagreeSoHeMustBeATrollOrAnAstroturferOrAShill
If volcanic activity is truly sending the glaciers into the ocean, local warming can have a real and serious effect on global climate.
It's funny, Here in Denmark, we here alot about the potential consequences of global warming, about the millions of refugees it will create.
Noone ever mentions that we'll probably be some of those refugees, Our tallest hill, has a height below 170,9 metres, or 560,6 feet above sealevel.
Time for me to buy that land in south america.
Blah blah sig blah blah blah irony blah blah
Okay, probably not a good thing to post so frequently BUT...
From TFA:
Co-author Professor David Vaughan (BAS) says,"This eruption occurred close to Pine Island Glacier on the West Antarctic Ice Sheet. The flow of this glacier towards the coast has speeded up in recent decades and it may be possible that heat from the volcano has caused some of that acceleration. However, it cannot explain the more widespread thinning of West Antarctic glaciers that together are contributing nearly 0.2mm per year to sea-level rise. This wider change most probably has its origin in warming ocean waters."
What warms the oceans? Global warming is a big buzzword today, and not without merit. I just find it interesting that there may be more possibilities out there than just "OMG we are killing the urf!"
Nature has a role to play in this too, humans weren't around during the ice-age, if we were we would have been blamed for Global Cooling I bet...
Seven Days with Ubuntu Unity
One of the possibilities that this opens is that there is life that has been evolving separately from the rest of terrestrial life for millions of years. In theory life could live off the volcanic chemicals just as it does at undersea vents. This could be the really interesting part of the discovery.
For those on the other side of the pond, the area of Wales is about that of New Jersey.
Actually, given that they've located an area of possibly steaming ash and dust, maybe they just found New Jersey by accident.
"Lakes Found Under Antarctic Ice Using Space Lasers"
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/02/19/1319228&from=rss
"Exploration of lake hidden beneath Antarctica's ice sheet begins"
http://www.physorg.com/news119682885.html
that scandinavia is still rebounding from the loss of its ice sheet in the last ice age
;-)
i don't know the rate, but perhaps the rising seawater and the rising land should counteract each other in scandinavia
i'm not really being that serious, just trying to bring some good cheer to you gloomy nords
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Actually, whales are mammals. Wales is a rugged, Klingon-speaking country in the United Kingdom.
No kidding!!! What do you say at this point?
considering themselves scandinavian, and start considering themselves dutch
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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.
From http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A1066484
Wales has, for decades, been used in the UK as a standard of measurement, not just of land mass but also of population, annual rain fall, tourist numbers and exports. Every large country's size was measured in 'Wales'es. Popular media, like radio and television have used the 'Wales', mainly in news reports.
"The Americans have invaded Vietnam. This country in south east Asia is 14 times the size of Wales."
"The Falklands have been invaded! These disputed islands, half the size of Wales, have been sought after by the Argentine government for decades."
etc
Wuth wong with "21th," you inthenthitiff clod!?
Here in my part of Papua New Guinea, a Wal-Mart is approximately 0.5M udus. :-)
Udu lives in the next village: he has a very flat head, therefore is an obvious unit of measurement.
What's more, since we switched to the Udu from the Boko (Boko got arthritis, so was shrinking), our real-estate market has thrived