How Much Heat Is Being Vented From Iceland’s Volcanic Fissures?

Amaze Lab

The volcanic fissures near the recent eruption in Grindavik have become seriously active once again, with eruptions occurring several times in only a month’s time. Now NASA has released images from space revealing what’s going on.

Transcript

00:00Geologists seem to agree, Iceland has now entered a new age of volcanism.

00:09The volcanic fissures near the recent eruption in Grindavík have become seriously active

00:13once again, with several eruptions occurring in only a month's time.

00:17This comes after 800 years of relative quietude, marking the end of the fissure's dormancy.

00:22Now NASA has released new satellite imagery of the area, revealing just how much heat

00:27is spewing out of those very cracks.

00:29The heat map doesn't give exact temperatures, however cooler areas are noted in blue and

00:33white, with hotter areas shown in red and yellow.

00:36What is well illustrated here, however, is just how massive these volcanic fissures are.

00:41You can see here the town of Grindavík, and just northeast the heat from the hottest of

00:45the fissures, with the Smithsonian Global Volcanism Program pointing out that the fissures

00:49grew to nearly 3,000 feet wide.

00:51What the heat map doesn't show is what's going on underground, with volcanologists

00:55saying the magma chamber has moved south, now stretching under Grindavík.

00:59Iceland is one of the most volcanically active places in the world, straddling the Mid-Atlantic

01:04Ridge where the Eurasian and North American tectonic plates meet.

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