The melting ice could awaken dangerous volcanoes in Antarctica and around the world

Global warming continues to worsen year after year, causing numerous disasters around the world. But in addition to rising temperatures and increasingly extreme weather, melting ice could lead to a scenario straight out of a science fiction movie. Indeed, this phenomenon could awaken dormant volcanoes.

This scenario is being considered based on a study conducted in the Chilean Andes. And while this is already happening in Iceland, it seems to be spreading to several other continents. As a result, researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison want to understand the link between volcanoes and melting glaciers. To obtain concrete results, they turned their attention to six volcanoes in Chile.

But that's not all, because it is necessary to go back several millennia to the last ice age. At that time, a thick layer of ice covered and compressed the magma chambers, limiting the number of eruptions and their power. For example, crystal analyses show that magma accumulated at depths of between 10 and 15 km. 

However, when the Earth warmed up 13,000 years ago, the pressure was released, causing powerful volcanic eruptions. And that's not all, because the force was so great that the Earth and rocks were fragmented. And because of current global warming, some volcanoes in Antarctica are at risk of waking up, bringing with them a host of negative effects on the environment. 

It must be said that researchers fear the emergence of a vicious circle. Indeed, during the first eruptions, volcanoes will release aerosols into the atmosphere, and if this happens repeatedly within a relatively short period of time, it could exacerbate global warming. In other words, the melting of ice caused by this phenomenon could be exacerbated by eruptions linked to this melting. Several regions of the world are being closely monitored, such as Alaska and New Zealand, which are home to subglacial volcanoes.