Skip to footer

Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano rumblings prompt orange alert

When Iceland's Grimsvötn volcano became active in April 2011, its explosive eruption sent ash plumes into the sky, disrupting flights in northwestern Europe for three days. Bardarbunga is another under-ice volcano.

|
Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters/File
People line up at the ticket counter of the Air Berlin airline at Tegel airport in Berlin after all flights were canceled due to volcanic ash in the skies over northern Germany, May 25, 2011. Ash spewed out by the Icelandic volcano Grimsvötn disrupted some 900 flights in northern Europe in May 2011.
  • By Pete Spotts Staff writer

Three days of earthquake activity at Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano prompted the country's meteorological office to issue an orange alert Monday for a heightened risk of eruption.

The volcano sits underneath Europe's largest glacier, raising concerns that an eruption would loft large amounts of steam and ash into the air as magma meets meltwater, disrupting air travel.

Recent eruptions in Iceland have had a long reach.

In May 2011, the most active volcano on the island, Grimsvötn, erupted, forcing airlines to cancel some 900 flights to and from Iceland, Britain, Greenland, Germany, Ireland, and Norway over a three-day period. The volcano sent plumes of ash up to seven miles high, overspreading air routes. Bardarbunga shares the same glacial skull cap sitting atop Grimsvötn.

The cancellations drew on lessons learned from an eruption in April 2010, after another under-ice Icelandic volcano, Eyjafjallajökull, became active. Its explosive eruption on April 14 of that year sent ash plumes into the sky that disrupted airline flights in northwestern Europe for six days.

Like Eyjafjallajökull, Grimsvötn is a stratovolcano, a class of volcanoes most prone to explosive eruptions. At 6,591 feet above sea level, it is Iceland's second highest mountain, with a caldera up to 10 miles wide and 2,300 feet deep.

According to the Iceland Meteorological Office, a swarm of earthquakes at the volcano began Aug. 16, and by Monday evening, seismographs had recorded some 2,600 earthquakes, including one that reached magnitude 4.5. Based on data from global-positioning-satellite receivers placed in the vicinity, the ground is being deformed as fresh magma works its way into the volcano at depth. But no signs have emerged yet of magma moving toward the surface.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano rumblings prompt orange alert
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Science/2014/0819/Iceland-s-Bardarbunga-volcano-rumblings-prompt-orange-alert
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe