冰岛火山或将喷发 欧洲航空再面临考验

Another of Iceland's volcanoes is showing signs it could soon blow, threatening Europe without...with another debilitating ash cloud. The Hekla volcano which's been called the Gateway to Hell has the potential to produce four times as much debris as the last one that erupted in May this year. Well joining us now is the volcanologist professor Peter Sammonds. Good afternoon to you, professor.

Good afternoon.

The Gateway to Hell , it sounds ominous. Why is this volcano so feared?

It erupts very very frequently as it erupts 20 or 30 times in the last thousand years, often covering Iceland with a coating of a tephra, that is volcanic ash and dust.

And what is that's led you and your colleagues to suggest that could be a huge explosion soon?

Well, I think it's probably going to be an explosion whether it's huge or not we just don't know yet on this. Hekla's been erupting with very, sort of, you know, small eruptions every ten years, and we called it VEI of 3, which is relatively small eruption. And there are signs that it might erupt again now.

Is it possible to get any ideas from those signs about timing?

Hekla usually gives very little advance warning that it is going to erupt. It seems to be sort of hours and days. But this happened last year and it didn't erupt. So you know volcanoes always have this, sort of, uncertainty. 

What are these signs in names and terms, or is it sort of tummy rumbling, isn't it?

Tummy rumbling, but also you could actually measure the tilts of the volcano and things like that.

The tilt, what do you mean with it?

You know, just say if as it starts to swell, for instance, because something is happening in that. There will be very very minute changes in the angel of the surfaces of the volcano. You can actually measure those.

And then, I mean, is... whether volcano goes off as it will, or is it, you know, what it looks like... it's almost like, you know, a bottle of pop or something? Your pressure building up, then something's pushed aside. Is that what happens?

Well, that can happen with Hekla, but also can ooze lava as well. So those are of these two types of volcanic styles about it.

And which one do you reckon...?

Oh that's so difficult one to say, I'd say because so few sort of warnings of what happens, it's difficult to analyse in that sense.

I mean, we are told that this could produce four times as much ash as the last big explosion that happened in May of this year. I mean just what could the effects of that be?

Well, obviously in terms of Iceland, it could mean quite a lot of tephra, covering the country yet again. In terms of the rest of Europe, everything is dependent upon the wind direction, really. You know, this time last year, we did that analyse of this. And it's only about 8% of the time that matched the winds in the right direction really to affect us, that means sort of one month in three, you might be affected. So you have the fortune combination of the size of the eruption and the winds in the right direction.

Why do we suddenly seem to be talking so much about Icelandic volcanoes since last year? It seems to have been becoming more and more of a problem. Is that just our awareness or is that the case?

Awareness is something, but I think Iceland is in a more eruptive phase at the moment. And the ease of, you know, volcanic problems seems to be quite dynamic so to speak. So yes, it is happening quite a lot apparently.

And I see Iceland is on the fault to a tectonics plate?

That's right. It is actually sitting right on the mid-Atlantic ridge, whether the spreads...plates are spreading apart, and as you know, sort of, almost like, how the earth begins in the sense. That's the plan of primeval or sort of sense about what it is like.

And I think you remember, there was something about the type of ash, and the type of ash that we had with the last one that was not as bad as far as disrupting planes, as the type of ash we had last year. Any idea what type of ash we are going to get this time?

Again. It's really too early to say. You know, we don't even know if this going to be an explosive volcano with ash really pushing behind that material or more effusive eruption with lava just flowing out of it yet. Yet, I'm sorry to say. It's complicated.

And nothing can be done to stop it? Nothing!

Nothing can be done stop it. We just said we are aware when they happen that we need to plan.

So what kind of signs are you looking out for now? What kind of warnings will be given as when you see anything that might potentially... suggest…?

Well, the key sign would be when you seize the mystic start of earthquake, certainly the volcano really start, and they don't seem to particular to remember, I just checked before I came on. There isn't yet a warning out by the Icelandic Meteorological Office as far as I can see. So you know, I don't think in that sense the forecasting agency do think this is imminent. The whole number of scientists who are monitoring and saying actually the signs have begun to show that something is happening, but might not be any...

We've talked about the impact in terms of ash cloud, what about the geography where this volcano's impact it might have on Icelandic people as well?

Well, it's in the interior, relatively in the interior, as no big populations around it. But you know, of the ash, you know, drifts, and every time there is an eruption, agricultural land gets destroyed in Iceland.