A volcano on Friday erupted just 40km from the Icelandic capital of Reykjavik, with red lava spewing out of the ground and a crimson glow lighting up the night sky.
Streams of red lava could be seen flowing out of a fissure in the ground in Geldingadalur, close to Mount Fagradalsfjall on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland, in footage filmed by an Icelandic coast guard helicopter.
While Keflavik International Airport and the small fishing port of Grindavik are just a few kilometers away, the area is uninhabited and the eruption was not expected to present any danger.
Photo: VF.IS / Reuters
“The eruption began at Fagradalsfjall in Geldingadalur at about 2045 GMT tonight. The eruption is considered a small one and the eruption fissure is about 500-700 metres long. The lava is less than 1 square kilometre in size,” the Icelandic Meteorological Office, which monitors seismic activity, said in a statement. “There is little eruption activity in the area.”
The eruption site is in a valley, about 4.7km inland from the southern coast of the peninsula.
Police and coast guard officials raced to the scene, but the public has been advised to stay away, and the main road from the capital region to Keflavik airport was temporarily closed.
There were no reports of ash fall, although tephra — solidified magma rock fragments — and gas emissions were to be expected.
Police ordered residents living east of the volcano to close their windows and stay indoors due to the risk of possible gas pollution carried by the wind. Gas emissions — especially sulfur dioxide — can be elevated in the immediate vicinity of a volcanic eruption, and might pose a danger to health and even be fatal.
Pollution can exceed acceptable limits, even far away, depending on the winds.
The eruption took place in the Krysuvik volcanic system, which does not have a central volcano.
Eruptions in the region are known as effusive eruptions, where lava flows steadily out of the ground, as opposed to explosive ones which spew ash clouds high into the sky.
The Krysuvik system has been inactive for the past 900 years, while the last eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula dates back almost 800 years, to 1240, the office said.
However, the region has over the past weeks been under increased surveillance after a magnitude 5.7 earthquake was registered on Feb. 24 near Mount Keilir on the outskirts of Reykjavik.
That quake has been followed by an unusual number of smaller tremors — more than 50,000, the highest number since digital recordings began in 1991.
The seismic activity has moved several kilometers southwest since the quake, concentrating around Mount Fagradalsfjall, where magma was in the past few days detected just 1km under the Earth’s surface.
However, seismic activity had slowed.
Iceland has 32 volcanic systems that are considered active, the highest number in Europe. The country has had an eruption every five years on average.
The vast island near the Arctic Circle straddles the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, a crack on the ocean floor separating the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates.
The shifting of these plates is in part responsible for Iceland’s intense volcanic activity.
The most recent eruption was at Holuhraun, beginning in August 2014 and ending in February 2015, in the Bardarbunga volcanic system in an uninhabited area in the center of the island. That eruption did not cause any major disruptions outside the immediate vicinity.
However, in 2010, an eruption at the Eyjafjallajokull volcano sent huge clouds of smoke and ash into the atmosphere, disrupting air traffic for more than a week, with the cancellation of more than 100,000 flights worldwide leaving some 10 million passengers stranded.
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