Twilight, Rainbow, Pinkie and Maud fly over the Bárðarbunga volcano, Iceland · 3:09pm Aug 23rd, 2014
This week, we send our team of flying pony geoscientists to Iceland to report on the news there.
Photo: Icelandic Met Office
Twilight looked out of the window of the Icelandic coastguard helicopter at the ice sheets of the Vatnajökull Glacier. The vast white landscape extended as far as she could see in all directions. Next to her Pinkie Pie sat with a gleeful smile at the control, playfully pushing the various levers and pedals with her hooves. The helicopter suddenly banked sharply to one side throwing Twilight to the floor. Maud put out a hoof to steady Pinkie's grip on the controls.
“Oops,” said Pinkie, with a chuckle.
“Do you really know how to fly this thing?” shouted Twilight, climbing back up and rubbing a hoof against her bruised head.
“It's a bit more difficult to fly than my pedal-copter,” admitted Pinkie. “But it's a lot more fun! I think I've just about got the hang of it now.”
They watched Rainbow Dash fly towards them. With her usual awesomeness, the pegasus dodged the rotors and dived underneath the craft. A moment later, she climbed through the open doorway. She pulled this shut, then walked towards her friends, pulling her flight goggles off her face.
“There's no visible changes to the glacier,” she said, “but you say there’s something going on under the ice?”
Maud looked up from studying a map of south east Iceland. “According to reports from the Icelandic Met Office, there's been a significant increase in minor earthquakes around the Bárðarbunga volcano,” she said, “which lies beneath the glacier. Magma—molten rock is rising to the surface from the mantle below. It's too early to tell at this point, but if the pressure continues to rise, it could lead to an eruption. That would melt a lot of ice very quickly producing a glacial outburst flood, which would substantially reshape the landscape. Eruptions under ice can be very explosive and throw a lot of ash into the stratosphere.” She put down the map and picked up a pair of headphones, putting them across her ears to listen to the radio.
“That happened four years ago when another volcano erupted,” said Rainbow. “That grounded air traffic all across Europe—you don't want to fly through that stuff.”
“Let’s hope that doesn’t happen,” said Twilight.
Maud took off her headphones. “There's just been a new announcement," she said. "There's been a small subglacial lava-eruption. The authorities have now changed the color code from orange to red.”
"Oh dear," said Twilight.
“We should have brought Fluttershy,” said Rainbow. “She’d just tell it to go back to sleep.”
This ties in to one of my favorite words, jökulhlaup. Volcano + glacier = mudslide + minimal fun. Still a great word, though.
Lava eruption on a glacier. Bet that's something to see.
For egocentric and vaguely pony-related reasons, I hope it at least holds off on any major eruptions for another couple of days, so I can fly home from BUCK instead of getting stuck on this foreign island.
Next time, they should bring Spike:
Dragons are indifferent to heat and cold and nigh indestructible. He could give a fist-dragon report from beneath the ice in the volcano.