Melting Glaciers is Causing Iceland to Rise and May Increase Volcanic Activity

First Posted: Jan 30, 2015 08:06 AM EST
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As Iceland's glaciers melt while temperatures warm, the land itself may be shifting. Scientists have found that Earth's crust under Iceland is rising as the great ice caps melt.

Scientists have long known that there's been a relatively fast uplift of the Icelandic crust. Until now, though, they haven't been able to link it to the accelerated melting of the island's glaciers. That's why the researchers decided to take a closer look.

"Our research makes the connection between recent accelerated uplift and the accelerated melting of the Icelandic ice caps," said Kathleen Compton, first author of the new study, in a news release.

To figure out how fast the crust was moving upward, the researchers used a network of 62 global positioning satellite receivers fastened to rocks throughout Iceland. By tracking the position of the GPS receivers year after year, the scientists could see how fast the rocks were moving and then calculate how far they had traveled.

In the end, the scientists found that when it comes to Iceland, the land's current accelerating uplift if directly related to the thinning of glaciers and to global warming.

So what will this mean for Iceland? There is actually geological evidence that during the past degalciation about 12,000 years ago, volcanic activity in some regions of Iceland increased thirtyfold. In fact, some estimate that this uplift could increase the frequency of volcanic eruptions such as the 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajokull, which had negative consequences worldwide.

Currently, the scientists plan to continue to analyze the uplift data to examine the seasonal variation as the ice caps grow during the winter snow season and then melt during the summer. This, in turn, could tell them a bit more about whether or not uplifting can be halted or actually reversed.

The findings are published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

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