“I think a couple of their boots also melted.”. REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — The eruption of a long-dormant volcano that sent streams of lava flowing across a small valley in southwestern Iceland is … — Icelandic Meteorological Office - IMO (@Vedurstofan) March 19, 2021 It was the first volcanic eruption in this part of Iceland — the Reykjanes Peninsula, home to … Read: Mars doesn’t look so dead after all, In another similarity to what occurs on Mars, the eruption involves basalt, a magma with honey-like viscosity. That makes the subsurface shenanigans at Geldingadalur a rare and nearly ideal biological simulacrum of what may have once happened, or may still be happening, on Mars. 442. The eruption produced a … REYKJAVIK, Iceland -- A long-dormant volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula in southwestern Iceland flared to life Friday night, spilling lava down two sides in … A hiker walks past the volcano on March 26. Lava has been bubbling out of an oddly shaped cone, slowly filling up the valley. “The eruption is, in my view, a fantastic analogue for Mars,” says Christopher Hamilton, a planetary scientist at the University of Arizona. The last eruption is actually still ongoing at the time of writing this article and began on March 19, 2021. Hikers gather to watch the volcano on March 21. The lava is killing off preexisting microbial life in the soil. As is typical for this sort of eruption, both on Earth and on Mars, a second fissure—perhaps one of many to come—opened up just north of the first on April 5, creating its own fountains and rivers of lava. It “didn’t really stall too much on its way to the surface,” says Tracy Gregg, a planetary volcanologist at the University at Buffalo. Long ago, microbes could have existed on the surface. The volcano erupted March 19 in the Reykjanes peninsula, southwest of the capital Reykjavík. The eruptions began on March 19 after thousands of small earthquakes in the area - southwest of Reykjavík - woke the sleeping giant. A truly spectacular eruption turning the area into a Mordor look-a-like. Three new craters have formed on 4th, 5th, and 10th April. Members of a search-and-rescue team monitor a new fissure on the volcano on April 5. AP At one point, the volcanoes caused the entire planet to tip 20 degrees. Iceland’s expansive Vatnajökull glacier sits atop various volcanoes. In its earliest eras, it built volcanoes so immense that their formation deformed its surface. Hikers make their way to and from the site on March 28. Yet little is concretely understood about the origins, evolution, and behavior of Mars’s volcanism, which is one reason why researchers are excited to use the Geldingadalur eruption as an analogue. Located between the second and third eruption site, the new fissure vent started to erupt another basaltic lava flow. Published April 16, 2021. As we speak, there is a volcanic eruption taking place in Fagradalsfjall, Iceland. Mars was also considerably wetter when it was young, with a thicker radiation-blocking atmosphere. Read Later. At any point during the past 4.5 billion years on Mars, whenever hot rock met water, underground hydrothermal networks would crop up. Saturday, 20 March 2021 06:09 PM. The volcano erupted began erupting … The volcano lights the night sky over Grindavik on March 20. Owen Tyrie. This post appears courtesy of Quanta Magazine. Swarms of small earthquakes in February 2021 on Iceland’s Reykjanes peninsula had experts warning that magma was moving beneath Geldingadalur valley and could soon erupt. That makes the Geldingadalur eruption a “model-scale lava field,” says Tobias Dürig, a volcanologist at the University of Iceland. — Icelandic Meteorological Office - IMO (@Vedurstofan) March 20, 2021 The eruption comes after weeks of increased seismic activity on the peninsula, with some 400 earthquakes detected in the … A volcano just 40 kilometers from Iceland's city of Reykjavik, has been drawing crowds keen to witness it erupting after 900 years of inactivity. A red shimmer from the volcano is seen behind the Bessastadir, the official residence of the President of Iceland, on March 23. — Katrín Jakobsdóttir (@katrinjak) March 19, 2021 The Fagradals Mountain volcano had been dormant for 6,000 years, and the Reykjanes Peninsula hadn't seen an eruption of any volcano in … But on … Martian eruptions often involved an exceedingly fluid version of basalt, suggesting that its volcanoes may sometimes have had Icelandic-style plumbing. 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