Trouble in Iceland 

Iceland, arguably the biggest hotspot for European seismic activity just got a lot worse over the past month. On November 18, Antonio Pequeno IV, from Forbes, published an article about how Iceland has experienced over 1,700 earthquakes within 24 hours of his writing. Now these have all been lower magnitude earthquakes around 3-4 magnitude ones at the highest but that is not what scientists are most worried about. Earthquakes of that size can do minor damage to weakly built infrastructure but nothing major really at all. The real danger comes from the volcanic activity triggered by these earthquakes. The reason for all of this seismic activity in Iceland though is simple. Iceland is situated right on a tectonic plate boundary. The island is situated in a fairly unfortunate spot on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. This ridge is an example of a constructive plate boundary. The lucky thing for Iceland though is the earthquakes that occur on these plate boundaries tend to be less powerful. The downside is the collision of the North American plate and the Eurasian plate here is the production of volcanoes. 

Iceland is home to the most volcanoes in Europe, this is actually one of the big reasons for tourism in Iceland. For example according to an article written by Portia Jones of euronews.travel, while the 2021 eruption of the Fagaradalsjall volcano was happening more than 356,000 tourists visited the site while the eruption was ongoing. This time though there won't be any visiting an eruption site. The probable ash cloud that will be produced in any event of an eruption this time around will not only make travel to Iceland almost impossible but will also affect travel around Europe. Also because of how frequent the seismic activity has been this time around scientists are expecting an eruption that may be life threatening to the countries inhabitants. So far 4,000 people have been evacuated because of warnings of an eruption in the town of Grindavik. This is where scientists think there is the most likely location of an eruption on the island at this point. Scientists aren't expecting this one to be incredibly destructive but judging off of the evacuation orders it looks like an eruption will pose a high danger to the town. 

In fact as I write this article right now there has been breaking news out of Iceland that there has been a volcanic eruption. An article just published by Claire Moses, a journalist at the New York Times, titled, Iceland Volcano Erupts in Plumes of Fire, describes the details of the eruption so far. As expected the town of Grindavik is right in the crosshairs. According to the article the Volcanoe began erupting this morning and hasn't stopped. There have already been reports of lava plumes reaching 330 feet and the glow is reported to have been visible from the capital of Iceland, Reykjavik. The highest risk of the eruption though and the location of the fissure isn't the town at this point, it is the geothermal power plant that sits right near the town. According to the article, Thorvaldur Thordarson a volcanologist in Iceland said, "We are looking at the worst case scenario, the eruption appears big and only about two kilometers from major infrastructure." Thankfully for Iceland though this has happened many times before. On the government website for the country they claim to have, "one of the world's mose effective volcanic preparedness measures." In fact one of Icelands mose memorable eruptions in recent memory, involving the Eyjafjallajokull volcano in 2010, an eruption that caused a big enough ash cloud that grounded much of Europes flights resulted in 0 fatalities. 

Sources:

Moses, Claire. “After Weeks of Warnings, Iceland Volcano Erupts in Plumes of Fire.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 18 Dec. 2023, www.nytimes.com/2023/12/18/world/europe/iceland-volcano-eruption-earthquakes.html 

Jones, Portia. “Volcano Tourism: How to Witness Iceland’s Glowing Lava up Close.” Euronews, www.euronews.com/travel/2023/11/22/lava-hotlines-and-captivating-infernos-inside-the-volatile-world-of-volcano-tourism-in-ice#:~:text=In%20recent%20years%2C%20visitor%20interest,while%20the%20eruption%20was%20ongoing . Accessed 18 Dec. 2023

Pequeño, Antonio. Iceland Records 1,700 More Earthquakes as Likelihood of Volcanic ..., www.forbes.com/sites/antoniopequenoiv/2023/11/18/iceland-records-1700-more-earthquakes-as-likelihood-of-volcanic-eruption-remains-high/, Accessed 19 Dec. 2023.