The European nation of Iceland is called that because it's home to both volcanoes and glaciers. A nd meteorologists say there are signs that a volcanic eruption is brewing.
Southwestern Iceland has seen 17,000 earthquakes over the past week according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office. Sound like a lot? It is a lot. One resident told cnn that it's very unusual to feel the Earth shake 24 hours a day for a whole week. The largest of these tremors had a magnitude of 5.6. That's considered a moderate quake depending on how deep it is.

There have been some small cracks in the roads and rock falls where the ground is steeper but aside from that not a lot of damage has been reported. The tremor seemed to calm down from Wednesday to Thursday but a government official doesn't think the seismic activity is over. And while scientists don't know exactly what's caused this swarm of quakes, a University of Iceland volcanology professor thinks they might be because there's been a quote "intrusion of magma into the Earth's crust in southwest Iceland."
This is where several volcanoes are located and it's especially concerning because 2/3 of the country's population lives in the southwestern part of the island. University computer models predict that if there's an eruption, the resulting lava flows probably won't impact any nearby towns or the region's international airport but again, that's only based on models. All this has triggered a range of reactions from people there from anxiety to excitement and cameras have been put on standby to live stream an eruption should one take place.
 1/2    1 2 下一页 尾页