Scientists Discover 91 Volcanoes Below Antarctic Ice Sheet (theguardian.com)

Reader schwit1 writes: Scientists have uncovered the largest volcanic region on Earth -- two kilometres below the surface of the vast ice sheet that covers west Antarctica. The project, by Edinburgh University researchers, has revealed almost 100 volcanoes -- with the highest as tall as the Eiger, which stands at almost 4,000 metres in Switzerland. This is in addition to 47 already known about and eruption would melt more ice in region affected by climate change, the report added. Geologists say this huge region is likely to dwarf that of east Africa's volcanic ridge, currently rated the densest concentration of volcanoes in the world. And the activity of this range could have worrying consequences, they have warned. "If one of these volcanoes were to erupt it could further destabilise west Antarctica's ice sheets," said glacier expert Robert Bingham, one of the paper's authors. "Anything that causes the melting of ice -- which an eruption certainly would -- is likely to speed up the flow of ice into the sea.

Comments

Domino effect

[Errol backfiring]

From the article:

"The most volcanism that is going in the world at present is in regions that have only recently lost their glacier covering – after the end of the last ice age. These places include Iceland and Alaska. Theory suggests that this is occurring because, without ice sheets on top of them, there is a release of pressure on the regions’ volcanoes and they become more active."

Not entirely unimportant, I think.

Re:Domino effect

[hey!]

Everyone has motivations. And one of them most people have (scientists more than most) is not to look stupid.

The point of worrying about it is that that's their job.

Re:Map with topo data showing volcanoes

[Dunbal]

Haven't clicked on it but the /goat/ in the url address is a give-away...should have looked at the url. I do :)