Volcano was studied by City College instructor

By Sara Jenkins
Contributing Writer

The Icelandic volcano which began erupting in April, continues to wreak havoc on airlines, and may pose health and environmental concerns — was the research thesis of a City College instructor.

Department chair of earth sciences Katryn Wiese did her graduate work at Oregon State University on Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano now erupting and spewing ash across Europe.

Wiese, a professor of geology and oceanography, got excited about the unusual volcanic activity — not every volcanologist is lucky enough to have their graduate work end up as global news.

“By studying the chemical changes in the old lava layers we can understand how and what types of magmas are cooking underneath,” she said.

Video footage on the website of the London-based publication The Guardian shows large billowing clouds of black smoke, which have left large parts of Iceland covered in toxic gray ash.

Studying the volcano that closed down air traffic for a week “was exciting and unexpected,” Weise said.

The Iceland island sits on a volcanic hot spot in the mid-Atlantic ridge where eruptions are relatively common according to The Guardian.

“This volcano produces lavas with a wide compositional range. This is not typical in an ocean setting,” Wiese said.

Volcanoes in oceanic settings, like those in Hawaii and Iceland, usually produce lava with a low silica content which means they have low explosiveness, she said. The high silica content of magmas from the current Eyjafjallajökull eruption is what gives this volcano its high explosiveness.

Volcanologists can predict how long these eruptions will last by looking at historic data and studying old lava flows, Wiese said. The last eruption of this particular volcano in 1812 lasted for two years.