Most of us already know that some areas of the world are more prone to earthquakes than others and that residents of places like Southern California, Indonesia and parts of China are already used to them. One such area that is accustomed to occasional tremors is the small island nation of Iceland.
There, earthquakes are frequent because the country straddles two of the Earth’s tectonic plates, both the American and Eurasian. They are divided by an underwater mountain range called the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, which exudes hot molten rock from the interior of the Earth.
Although earthquakes were a common occurrence in Iceland, the country was unprepared for last week’s events, which included 18,000 mind-boggling earthquakes that affected the island within about a week. The swarm of earthquakes began on February 24 with a magnitude 5.7 earthquake, the largest to date, and was followed by thousands of smaller ones.
“I have experienced earthquakes before but never so many in a row,” Reykjavik resident Auður Alfa Ólafsdóttir told CNN. “It’s very unusual to feel the Earth tremble 24 hours a day for a whole week. It makes you feel very small and helpless against nature.”
What scientists have to say
Geophysicists and volcanologists say seismic activity on the island has intensified since December 2019, and although volcanoes in southwest Iceland have remained silent for about 800 years, they said it is possible that the rest period is finally over.
Experts say the intense chain of earthquakes is the culmination of more than a year of intense seismic activity and that similar tremors have been observed before past volcanic eruptions. The Icelandic Meteorological Office told the New York Times that magma movements were a likely cause of the quakes, and the agency warned that an eruption could occur in a matter of days or weeks.
“The two tectonic plates are moving away from each other and this movement has created the conditions for magma to come to the surface,” Freysteinn Sigmundsson, a research professor in geophysics at the University of Iceland, told the New York Times .
Iceland has about 30 active volcanoes, but volcanologists have tried to alleviate citizens ’fear of an impending eruption, saying one in Reykjanes will not threaten inhabited areas of the peninsula.
Icelanders cannot be blamed for worrying, though, given the catastrophic eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull volcano in 2010. Releasing plumes of black ash into the sky, the event was so intense that it caused one of the traffic disruptions in decades.
“Of course it worries people,” Þorvaldur Þórðarson, a professor of volcanology at the University of Iceland, told CNN. “For this region, this is really quite unusual, not for the type of earthquakes or their intensity, but for their duration. It’s been working for more than a week. “
Experts have said that the greatest expected damage from the possible imminent eruption includes damage to the power line and that the road connecting the capitol, Reykjavík, with the airport could be affected.
“The composition of the magma here is very different, the intensity of the explosive activity would be significantly lower,” says Þórðarson.
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