Volcano Super-Team Studies Iceland Eruptions
Oct. 13, 2014 - Iceland's restless volcanoes make it a perfect place to gather data on all kinds of eruptions. The Futurevolc project brings together over a hundred scientists from a range of disciplines, whose research promises to help the European Union make timely, informed decisions that may help lessen the impact of eruptions on people's lives. The project started in 2012 and played a large role in monitoring the 2014 eruption of Iceland's Bardarbunga volcano.
Click here to learn more about monitoring Bardarbunga's eruptions.
Stephanie Dumont
Post Doctoral Fellow - University of Iceland, Futurevolc Member
This is a small eruption, but it's probably just the beginning
We just don't know, maybe it can stop, but there's also a lot of other scenarios.
Freysteinn Sigmundsson
Professor of Research - Nordic Volcanological Center, Futurevolc Coordinator
Futurevolc ia a research project about better understanding of volcanoes, how volcanoes work, how we can monitor volcanoes, and how we can understand what happens inside the volcanoes.
We have about 26 participating institutions. And within each institute there is a group of people, so we have well over 100 active researchers in the project.
We want to provide better information on the status of volcanoes to society.
Kristin Vogjford
Director of Research - Iceland Meteorological Office, Futurevolc IMO Principal Investigator
We are developing ways to analyze our data and give information as fast as possible to people and to civil protection.
There is this tremendous pressure because the product is needed now and we are just developing it.
Stephanie Dumont
Every new observation that we can bring can help us better understand what is going on. And this is really exciting and also challenging because we try to bring these constraints on the real time.
Freysteinn Sigmundsson
Here in Iceland we have a special situation, the main hazard if an eruption occurs under ice is flooding. We made need to evacuate the areas because of that.
Even just a few minutes, 30 minutes, can make a big difference.
Kristin Vogjford
One aspect also of Futurevolc is this move towards opening up data from the event. So our data will be open as early as possible. This is a move that is ongoing in Europe. There's this higher emphasis on giving scientists better access to data. And so several other European projects interact with Futurevolc in building this infrastructure that will enable us to provide access to our data.
Freysteinn Sigmundsson
Iceland is like a laboratory for volcanology because we have so many different types of volcanoes in different settings. Therefore this area was chosen because of the high activity and the likelihood of an eruption during the timespan of the project. And that is what we are seeing now.
