Slashdot Mirror
Four of Iceland's Main Volcanoes Are All Preparing For Eruption (icelandmonitor.mbl.is)
Vulcanologists always watch Iceland carefully -- it's the one exposed place on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with 130 different volcanoes -- and something big may be brewing. Applehu Akbar writes: Now that four of Iceland's largest volcanoes are showing signs of impending eruption, the world may be in for another summer of ash. Katla, Hecla, Bárðarbunga and Grímsvötn have all had major activity in the past, including vast floods from melting glaciers, enough ash to ground aircraft over all of Europe, volumes of sulfur that have induced global nuclear winter for a decade at a time, and clouds of poisonous fluoride gas. When the mountains of Iceland speak, the whole world listens.
Eruptions are already overdue for both Hekla and Katla -- Hekla's magma chamber has filled up, and Katla last erupted in 1918. "The Katla eruption would lead to the melting of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, resulting in a glacial flood," reports Tech Times, "likely to hit areas where large crowds are found at any given point of time, especially the black sand beaches of Sólheimasandur and the village of Vik in Southern Iceland."
Eruptions are already overdue for both Hekla and Katla -- Hekla's magma chamber has filled up, and Katla last erupted in 1918. "The Katla eruption would lead to the melting of the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, resulting in a glacial flood," reports Tech Times, "likely to hit areas where large crowds are found at any given point of time, especially the black sand beaches of Sólheimasandur and the village of Vik in Southern Iceland."
Mother Earth stands ready to combat global warming with some nice ash clouds. Thus saving civilization as we know it.
Or wiping it out entirely .....
(Just depends on your point of view.)
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
volumes of sulfur that have induced global nuclear winter for a decade at a time
You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
From WikiPedia
The flood discharge at the peak of an eruption in 1755 has been estimated at 200,000–400,000 m3/s (7.1-14.1 million cu ft/sec), comparable to the combined average discharge of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze rivers (about 266,000 m3/s (9.4 million cu ft/sec)).
THAT is a lot of warm water.
There probably are more spectacular floods elsewhere on earth but these glacial floods are still relatively impressive
https://baldpacker.smugmug.com...
I was in Iceland during and after the last major floods. Those I-beams came from a road bridge, the beams are about 1 meter high and were bent up and torn apart like liquorice sticks. The same flood also washed out ice blocks the size of houses that took months to melt down. It was quite surreal to drive down the coast road with those massive blocks of ice lining the road like houses. Made one realise how small and insignificant humans really are.
You got it backwards. Katla's the one that would go off without giving the airlines any notice. It's actually a serious safety issue; some people are arguing for a permanent no-fly zone over her, because she tends to go off with no warning whatsoever. Not always, but often. And she tends to have explosive eruptions. It's doubtful that an airplane approaching her would have time to divert before the ash cloud reached it.
I spent the evening flickering into your darkness.