First-ever descent into a volcano's magma chamber!

It seems that for the first time ever, scientists have descended into a volcano's magma chamber - that of the (currently dormant) Thrihnukagigur volcano in Iceland. National Geographic will broadcast a television program about it in a few days. It reports:

During the first ever scientific expedition into a volcanic magma chamber, climber Einar Stefánsson rappels into Iceland's dormant Thrihnukagigur volcano in October.




Magma chambers supply the molten rock that oozes or bursts onto Earth's surface during an eruption.

Thrihnukagigur, which last erupted about 3,000 years ago, contains only ancient magma - though the volcano could come back to life at any time, experts say.

"Thrihnukagigur is unique ... It's like somebody came and pulled the plug and all the magma ran down out of it," said volcanologist Haraldur Sigurdsson.




. . .

While people have ventured inside the relatively shallow volcanic craters located close to Earth's surface, the 2010 expedition was the first to explore a volcano's deeper chambers.




"It was a really amazing experience - just unbelievable," Sigurdsson said.

There's more at the link.

That's a program I'm going to have to watch, either on the channel itself, or by buying a DVD copy of it. Fascinating!

(There's also the little fact that Thrihnukagigur isn't an extinct volcano - merely a dormant one. After the spectacular 2010 eruptions of Eyjafjallajökull, another volcano not too far away, if I'd been in those scientists' shoes, I'd have been wondering all the time I was underground whether Thrihnukagigur wasn't about to let go again! 650 feet down, as those scientists were, you wouldn't have much of a chance to get out of the way of the lava . . . )

Peter