New concerns over Icelandic volcano

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A BBC report last week suggested Katla, with a 6.2 mile crater, has the potential to cause catastrophic flooding as it melts the frozen surface and sends billions of gallons of water surging through Iceland’s east coast and into the Atlantic Ocean.

Fears of another devastating eruption in Iceland and a repeat of last year’s ash cloud airspace closure ought to be treated with caution and the BBC report has been accused by critics of “media hype”.

A similar scare in February, following reports in the Daily Mail and the Telegraph, turned out to be based on a misunderstanding, although an eruption of the Grímsfjall volcano in May did prompt limited air space closures.

According to the BBC, however, experts who have been monitoring the volcanic area in Iceland since July have warned that a new eruption may be imminent and it could be the most powerful the country has seen in almost a century.

Professor Pall Einarsson, who works at the Iceland University Institute of Earth Sciences, said the impact would depend on the type of eruption and any number of external factors.

“This difficulty is very apparent when you compare the last two eruptions in Iceland – Eyjafjallajokull in 2010 and Grimsvotn in 2011,” he told the BBC.

“Eyjafjallajokull, which brought air traffic to a halt across Europe, was a relatively small eruption, but the unusual chemistry of the magma, the long duration and the weather pattern during the eruption made it very disruptive.

“The Grimsvotn eruption of 2011 was much larger in terms of volume of erupted material. It only lasted a week and the ash in the atmosphere fell out relatively quickly.

“So it hardly had any noticeable effect except for the farmers in south-east Iceland who are still fighting the consequences.”