Volcano Erupts Under Glacier
A volcano erupted under Europe’s biggest glacier Friday, belching gray smoke and black ash miles into the Icelandic sky.
Scientists said the eruption under the Vatnajokull glacier would not endanger populated areas and was unlikely to cause heavy melting of ice. It was believed to be coming up through Grimsvotn lake.
In the last eruption in a more northern part of the glacier in 1996, melted ice poured into the lake to spill over and flood the uninhabited black sands on Iceland’s south coast, sweeping away roads and bridges.
Iceland has one of the most active volcanic areas in the world, with an eruption every five years over the past 1,100 years, scientists say. Its volcanoes are not the cone-shaped variety common in other parts of the world, but are fissures hidden under the glacier, which covers 8% of Iceland.
Scientists who flew over the eruption pinpointed it as coming from three small craters in a half-mile-wide fissure.
Friday’s eruption was 155 miles from the capital, Reykjavik.
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