Volcanic eruptions in Iceland lead scientists to startling discoveries | 60 Minutes

months before the geldinga dollar volcano erupted in 2021 Iceland's volcanologists knew it was coming a Subterranean Serpent of magma was coiling through the depths looking for a way out as the magma stirred it triggered tens of thousands of earthquakes when the volcano finally blew scientists scrambled for the equipment to record it many predicted a new seismic era for the land of Fire and Ice and Last Summer the same volcano exploded again as we first reported in April scientists have revealed some startling discoveries from the two eruptions inching us closer to the day when eruptions will be forecast as we forecast rain we went back to Iceland to see how the work was progressing the story will continue in a moment during the 2021 eruption we saw chunks of molten rock the size of cars cartwheel into the air lava boiled up through nine vents as the Earth unzipped but it was number five this one that stole the show we watch from a Hilltop look at that with seismologist Kristen Jones daughter as waves of lava poured down the valley in the end scientists calculated there was enough lava to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool every four seconds we wanted to see what it looked like now so we flew back to the same Hill wow this is remarkable completely changed completely changed how much love is out here so the maximum thickness is about 100 meters and it is the thickest by the Crater that's a little more than 300 feet deep yes it's incredible lava had filled up the valley like a bathtub the hills where icelanders came for a closer look or gone so was its tongue twisting Icelandic name now we had to learn a new one so the whole Mass have you seen behind here is called Fiat very good excellent that means beautiful Valley Mountain a lot easier to pronounce a new name for a new landscape John's daughter head of Earth Sciences at Iceland's meteorological office told us the 2021 eruptions were highly unusual the Quake storms that usually reach a crescendo before an eruption instead went silent the Tremors stopped only then did the volcano explode so this was something we didn't expect because before most eruptions we see an escalation in the process so we see more and bigger earthquakes the closer we we come to an eruption and what did you find this time everything got quiet and we thought okay maybe this is it we're not going to see an eruption this time but we were wrong the magma bomb lasted six months then this past August the volcano exploded again this time scientists weren't fooled when the earthquakes stopped they ran tests that showed the volcano wasn't sleeping rocks were still moving gas escaping scientists called in Audible and warned the volcano would likely blow within 24 hours they were right today the crater is still cooling it's quiet for now look at that wow remember when we flew around the plume the fountain I remember I didn't feel as safe at that point in 2021 we had to Veer away from the crater it was too dangerous to get any closer ah this feels much safer so do you think the eruption here is completely over right now we are not seeing anything but we also know that this can happen quite quickly the warning time we have is not necessarily going to be many weeks but maybe just a couple of days the lava field is like a record of the eruption so we set off at the crack of dawn that's an hour before noon when the winter sun rises this far north soon we ran out of road then we ran out of steam our trucks had 42-inch tires but that was no match for snow that was as fine as sugar [Applause] finally we arrive to find a vast sea of volcanic rock just six months old geophysicist freston sigmundson from the University of Iceland gave us a tour it is freezing out here but this this is warm yeah feel it this is the heat of the lava look at that freston sigmundson told us if we dug just 20 feet below where we were standing we'd find molten rocks still at a scorching 1800 degrees the heat is still coming out and it will be for for a number of years but even with this the temperatures here it's going to take years for this to cool down yes yes it's that hot it is not taught on that thick incredible sigmundson told us these eruptions had spewed out the largest mix of lavas ever recorded they cooled in different shapes some were as smooth as sidewalk gnarled like roots or stretched taut like rope yeah if you call it lava cables I would say this might be one of the best place on planet Earth to see this lava Capers here pressed in sigmundson told us he now wants to find out if their most recent finding a seismic decline before an eruption might apply to similar volcanoes in Japan Russia or the United States it's urgent to do so he told us as warmer temperatures melt the glaciers that sit like a pressurized lid on many of the world's most volatile volcanoes so the retreating glaciers have an effect on the volcano yes retreating places can increase the possibility of eruptions also the glaciers they are pushing down on the Earth there's a force so if the Glaciers are moving intensive Force already The Retreat of glaciers in Iceland they are causing a lot more of new magma being formed under Iceland than normally with this new magma came new discoveries in 2021 Ed Marshall a Texas trained geophysicist showed us the lava wall when it was a mere 30 feet high we watched as he scooped the molten lava flash cooling it in water on this trip we met Marshall in his lab at the University of Iceland to see what he had found we have an instrument called an ICP OES and that stands for it's a inductively coupled plasma Optical emission spectrometer okay hahaha impossibly named machine is able to measure with pinpoint accuracy the chemical composition of the rock but Marshall wasn't expecting what they found next crystals so what did you learn from these well we learned that they're coming from nine miles deep below the volcano nine miles down it's actually coming from a part of the earth that we don't normally get to sample the boundary between the crust and mantle the magma had come straight up like an Express Elevator from deep in the mantle opening a rare window into the Earth's deep Plumbing geophysicist Ed Marshall showed us samples of the different lavas he's collected so here we have a different kind of lava called a pojo much smoother yeah when the lavas were still red hot they flowed at different speeds some oozed out of the volcano others exploded moving as fast as 10 miles an hour it's important to figure it out because they have different Hazard potential you know if you're worried about your town being covered by lava be more worried about this one exactly like so many other volcanologists who rushed to the eruption site in 2021 this self-described lab rat told us he was awed by the sheer power on display you know you have worked to do it but there are times when you just sit there and stare at the volcano it's just so much grander than you it's kind of this almost Divine kind of presence every volcano as we learned has its own personality field had elements of the Divine others were not as beatific take Grimm's virgin routinely described as cranky overdue for an eruption Grimm's voten is hidden beneath a glacier making it almost impossible to monitor so seismologist Kristen Jones daughter and her European Partners tried something new burying a coil of fiber optic cables in the ice cap so the cable we used was only four millimeters thick and so thin they're actually thinner than a human hair yeah it's a bit funny you know it's like you're trenching a very 13 kilometer long hair along a volcano they devised a makeshift trenching sled to bury the cables to try to pick up volcanic Tremors it worked where regular seismometers barely registered a pulse the fiber optic cable showed Grimm's voting was grumbling irritably inside its icy tune Jones daughter told us it could be a game changer and you found how many more earthquakes 100 times more found with this fiber yes did you find something in the pattern here that you could say ah if we see this this indicates that an eruption is going to happen so the potential here is really to be able to understand the volcanoes and the plumbing system you know just being able to seeing this high definition picture that we were not able to see before and this is just standard cable the cable that we use for bringing television into our homes exactly but Iceland is one of the few places in the world to actively watch its volcanoes the lack of monitoring elsewhere can sometimes spell disaster like the 2018 bang out of the blue in Indonesia that killed 400 people Cornell geophysicist Matthew Pritchard told us they've got to do a better job so there are about 600 that have erupted in historic times the last 500 years and of those only about 35 percent have continuous monitoring at them what's the problem well it's expense it's maintaining these instruments again if once a volcano stops erupting you know should we continue to monitor it or has it gone to sleep for another couple hundred years so it's all a question of priorities it's a question of resources but Pritchard told us there's a solution on hand spying on volcanoes from space he's spearheading an effort to establish a satellite Network that will continuously monitor the world's most Restless volcanoes take Mauna Loa in Hawaii this past November it tore open the Earth after 38 years of Slumber on the ground magma forced its way through deep layers of rock until it cracked the Earth's surface from space it looked like this so each one of these Contours here means 25 centimeters of ground motion so on this side of the rift it moved this way about 25 centimeters and then this side the opposite direction and so this is evidence of the magma coming up through the system and pushing the ground to the side as it was coming out to erupt and all of this captured by satellite yes the satellite can detect what level of movement in on the surface of the Earth best case scenario a few millimeters a few millimeters that's right from space that's right Cornell's Pritchard told us the new gold standard would be to combine ground sensors with satellite images to help detect eruptions earlier next year a new new satellite will be launched that will use radar waves capable of penetrating dense jungle or snow and seeing deeper underground than ever before but as technology turbocharges the ability of volcanologists to forecast eruptions we were reminded that the Earth has been at this far longer than scientists have been collecting data and that one told us keeps you humble

Channel: 60 Minutes

Views: 1,717,890

Keywords: 60 Minutes, CBS News, Volcano, Iceland

Id: -LuPF5JTms0

Length: 13min 19sec (799 seconds)

Published: Sun Jun 04 2023