Dr. Schmidt explains the world: Did Iceland’s volcanoes trigger the French Revolution?

A volcano recently erupted again in Iceland. Why does this happen so often there?

On average, there is a crash there once every five years. On the one hand, because there are many volcanoes there. 130 to be exact. According to experts, 30 of them are said to be active. And on the other hand, the frequent eruptions have to do with Iceland’s location in the North Atlantic. The island lies on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, an underwater mountain range that stretches from the North Pole to the Arctic. There, the North American and Eurasian continental plates are being pushed apart by rising magma.

Where there are many volcanoes, earthquakes also occur frequently. Are the two related?

Not necessarily. Of course, both can occur together, for example in Nicaragua, Central America. But there is another way. Remember the Anatolian Plate, whose borders run along the Black Sea and the border with Syria. The last major earthquake occurred there last year – without a volcano.

Geothermal energy covers a large part of Iceland’s energy needs. So volcanism also has something positive.

That’s right, around 65 percent of the island’s primary energy needs are covered by geothermal energy. Practically everything that does not rely on liquid fuels runs on geothermal energy. In addition, a significant portion of Iceland’s electricity is produced by hydropower.

Does geothermal energy have disadvantages such as fracking, in which natural gas fields are exploited through the use of chemicals?

Not in such volcanic areas. Hot water reserves in the ground are tapped. This can be done without fracking.

But not all outbreaks are the same. What are the differences?

In fact, there are different eruption variants. In the current one on Iceland, “only” liquid lava is escaping and, fortunately, towards the south, where relatively few people live. Other volcanoes can experience explosive eruptions, throwing large amounts of ash into the high atmosphere. This resulted in significant restrictions on European air traffic when Eyjafjallajökull erupted in Iceland in 2010. An outbreak at the end of the 18th century was even partly responsible for the French Revolution.

That’s nonsense, isn’t it?

Not quite. This resulted in several poor harvests in France because the outbreak brought huge amounts of sulfur dioxide to Western Europe. This had massive consequences for people’s lives in the agricultural European countries of the time.

What effect do the gases escaping from the volcano have?

Sulfur dioxide and ash in the higher levels of the atmosphere blocked sunlight, which is bad for crops in the field. There was also acid rain.

And the people in Iceland got off lightly?

It was even worse for the Icelanders themselves, as they were exposed to even more toxic gases. A quarter of the island’s population died at that time.