Iceland , quite rightly , is famous for its various , beautiful , and activevolcanoes . Although Eyjafjallajokull ’s 2010 bam led to the most extensive shutdown of European air space since the Second World War , it is n’t considered to be a particularly dangerous volcano . Hekla , on the other paw , is , and one researcher cogitate that it ’s about to blow its top any day now .
Páll Einarsson , a professor of geophysics at the University of Iceland , has admonish airplane and people to stay as far away from this stratovolcano as possible . accord to his latest readings , strain is accumulating at a higher - than - carry rate at the site , hinting that magma is lift up through the incrustation and perhaps depositing itself in a very shallow sleeping room , or even force its way up the conduit to the vent at the control surface .
Between 1970 and 2000 , Hekla flare once roughly every 10 years . This intend that it was release the insistence valve on the underlying magma chamber amazingly frequently ; after all , these types of volcano are screw for their incredibly explosive eruption styles with huge delays between each cataclsymic blast . The longer the menstruation of dormancy , the more muscular the subsequent eructation is probable to be , and unfortunately , based on this oscillation , Hekla is six age delinquent – it last erupted in the yr 2000 .
Hekla today . Johann Helgason / Shutterstock
“ Hekla is a very dangerous vent , ” Einarsson toldVisit.is . “ We could be await at a major catastrophe when the next eruption begins if we are not careful . There are 20 - 30 planes full of passengers flying decent over the top of Hekla every 24-hour interval . Hekla is ready at any moment . ”
Hekla was long known by European settlers as the “ Gateway to Hell , ” and for good grounds : It has asurprisingly volatile irruption history .
In 1104 , after 250 years of sleep , it covered half the intact country in ash tree and volcanic bomb . In 1693 , a fierce , seven - month - foresighted eruption produced more than 216 million cubic meters ( 7.63 billion three-dimensional feet ) of volcanic debris per hr , some of which made it across the sea to Norway .
Hekla ’s largest historical bam pass in 1766 , which hold out until 1768 and featured terrifying , all-encompassing , prolonged lava flows , mammoth lava bombard the size of desks , and sudden flooding thanks to the speedy melting of the ice jacket crown .
Herein , though , lie in the problem with Einarsson ’s analysis . As pointed out by Erik Klemetti atWired , the clip between Hekla ’s eruptions is quite discrepant , and the regularity in the last few decennium is only looking at a very light segment of the vent ’s timeline , which stretches back at least 7,000 years .
Since the 1104 event , there have been 24 bam of vary intensity , signify that there is one rough every 38 year . So it ’s potential another Hekla bam wo n’t materialize at this rate until the year 2038 .
It seems that Hekla does n’t meet by the rules . There was a 41 - twelvemonth crack between the powerful 1766 consequence and a smaller eruption in 1725 , which mean that a disruption of several 10 can ensue in a catastrophic eruption . However , after a violent bang in 1158 , there was a 48 - year gap before the next eruption in 1206 , which turn out to be rather puny by comparison .
The next clap , however powerful , will likely produce prolonged and persistent ash tree cloud , just like Eyjafjallajokull did in 2010 ( pictured here ) . J. Helgason / Shutterstock
Along with the fact that volcanologists have very little pressure datum on the volcano , which Einarsson is using to make his conclusions , the only finish that can realistically be made is that the chance of a major Hekla eruption is about as likely as there not being one at all in the next year or so .
Or , as Klemetti puts it : “ volcano care not for your puny human schedule . ”
