[Heaven] Volcanoes: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid - The Supervolcano Is Coming

[Heaven soon]

Volcanoes: Be Afraid, Be Very Afraid - The Supervolcano Is Coming
Every so often the earth chooses to remind us that we really aren't in control of this planet. The volcanic eruption in Iceland, which began on Wednesday, is just such a reminder. As ash spews out across northern Europe, grounding all flights across Scandinavia and Britain, we begin to realise how powerless we humans are. But as volcanic eruptions go, the fireworks on Iceland are small fry. Scientists rank volcanoes according to how explosive they are, using the volcanic explosivity index (VEI), which goes from zero to eight. The measurement is based on how much material is thrown out of the volcano, how high the eruption goes and how long it lasts. Like the scale used to measure earthquake size, the VEI is logarithmic - meaning that a volcano with a VEI of five is 10 times more powerful than one with a VEI of four. As yet, scientists haven't managed to gather enough data to calculate the VEI of Eyjafjoll, but Thorvaldur Thordarson, an expert on Icelandic volcanism at the University of Edinburgh, estimates that this one is probably a two or three - similar to the eruptions seen on Mount Etna on Sicily in 2002 and 2003, and the kind of eruption we expect to see somewhere on earth at least once every year. By contrast, the eruption of Mount St Helens, in the north-west of the US in May 1980, was a one-in-10-year event, with a VEI of about four.

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