Iceland is rising — some sites as much as 1.4 inches a year — as melting glaciers fuel changes in the ground, according to researchers at the University of Arizona.
“This is important because previous researchers have shown a direct correspondence in Iceland of motion upward and volcanic activity,” study co-author Richard Bennett, an associate professor of geosciences at the University of Arizona, said,
according to Fox News.
And the changes are speeding up over time.
Bennett told Fox News that researchers likely will continue to closely monitor volcanic activity in Iceland. In 2010, the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland shut down travel around Europe. Icelandic volcano Bardarbunga has been erupting since August.
Scientists long have known that land rises or “rebounds” as glaciers melt, including land in Canada and Scandinavia that was pushed down by glaciers in the last ice age as well as parts of Alaska and Chile,
The Washington Post reported.
Iceland is an ideal place to study the changes as the island loses about 11 trillion tons of ice a year, leading to its rapid rise, the Post said.
“Our research makes the connection between recent accelerated uplift and the accelerated melting of the Icelandic ice caps,”
study co-author Kathleen Compton said in a news release.
The researchers tracked the land’s movement using 62 GPS receivers throughout Iceland, according to the study, published in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.
The study was funded by the National Science Foundation and the Icelandic Center for Research.
Twitter users commented about the findings.
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