Layer of volcanic ash and glass shards in Antarctica

May 21

Layer of volcanic ash and glass shards in Antarctica

Climate, Climate Science, Sea Effects Add comments

Antarctic glacial ice

Discovery of a layer of volcanic ash and glass shards in Antarctica, evidence of an old eruption by a still active volcano that researchers says might be contributing to the thinning of Antarctic glacial ice was announced at the beginning of the week.

This story is related to the recently published discovery of the volcanic layer in the journal Nature Geoscience by Hugh F.J. Corr and David G. Vaughan, two scientists with the British Antarctic Survey.
As Dr. Vaughan said “This is the first time we have seen a volcano beneath the ice sheet punch a hole through the ice sheet.”

The volcano’s heat could possibly melting and thinning the ice and raising the speed of the Pine Island Glacier in West Antarctica after two millennia of snow rain covering the volcanic layer, but recent radar surveys found it. As Hugh F.J. Corr and David G. Vaughan continues, the radar teams discovered the layer in 2004 and 2005, but the reflected radar waves from the layer are so strong they thought it was actual bedrock.

In case the Pine Island Glacier may be thinning because of the volcano, it’s highly unusual to point the the thinning of Antarctica’s ice sheet as a result of hidden volcanoes and probably You know that Antarctica has few active volcanoes and some glacial scientists, like Dr. Vaughan blame warmer ocean waters for glacial thinning in the area of West Antarctica.

The scientists discovered was most likely dated to ” around the time of Alexander the Great “. The eruption would have exploded upwards, pushing through hundreds of meters of ice, spraying ash and volcanic glass shards all over the land surrounding it.

The thickness of the ice above the layer gives arguments for the scientists to date it to 200 B.C., “plus or minus 240 years or so.’” The researchers think they may narrow it down more than that, due to previous examinations of ice cores, they knew that a volcano had erupted in Antarctica some time around 325 B.C., although they had not known where the eruption had happened. Dr. Vaughan said: “We’re fairly confident this is the same eruption.”