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Decades of Icelandic fireworks?
Volcanic activity appears to occur
in a cycle
16 Apr 10 - Volcanic activity on Iceland appears to follow a periodicity
of around 50 to 80 years, says Thorvaldur Thordarson, an expert on
Icelandic volcanoes at the University of Edinburgh, UK.
Judging by the increase in both volcanic and seismic activity over the
past 10 years, Thordarson thinks we might be entering a more active
phase with more eruptions. He estimates that the active phase will last
for 60 years or so. By contrast, the latter half of the 20th century was
unusually quiet.
When Gudrún Larsen from the University of Iceland in Reykjavik and
colleagues studied 800 years' worth of data from lava layers, ice cores
and historical records, they found that Iceland's volcanism goes through
cycles of high and low activity strongly linked to earthquake activity.
The Vatnajökull ice cap region experienced between 6 and 11 eruptions
every 40 years during phases of high activity, compared with no more
than three eruptions per 40 years during low-activity phases. Other
regions of Iceland appear to follow a similar pattern to Vatnajökull.
After Iceland's
Laki volcano erupted in 1783, crop production fell in western
Europe. Some link that eruption, which helped fuel famine, to the French
Revolution.
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See entire article, entitled "Get ready for decades of Icelandic
fireworks"
http://www.sott.net/articles/show/206978-Get-ready-for-decades-of-Icelandic-fireworks
Thanks to Tim McHart for this link
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Could eruption last more than a year?
18 Apr 10 - In 1821, Eyjafjallajoekull volcano managed to
erupt for more than a year, sys this article on MSNBC.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/36591444/ns/travel-news/page/2/
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