(ORDO NEWS) — In the coming decades, humanity may face a massive volcanic eruption that will cause enormous damage to global infrastructure.
At the same time, the journal Nature believes that people are not ready for such a development of events.
Scientists examined ice cores and concluded that the chances of a catastrophic volcanic eruption in this century are one in six. This is thousands of times higher than the probability of a collision with asteroids or comets.
In this case, the catastrophe will be 10-100 times stronger than the famous eruption of the Tonga volcano.
And this means that the consequences of the eruption will affect the work of transport, communications, food security, water supply, trade, energy and the economy.
The frequency of major eruptions can be estimated from the sulfate content of ice cores. It turned out that such events with a magnitude of 7 occur once every 625 years, and with a magnitude of 8 – once every 14.3 thousand years.
A major eruption would cause several trillion dollars in damage.
Earlier it was reported that the eruption of the Fagradalsfjall volcano began in Iceland. It is located on a peninsula 30 kilometers from Reykjavik.
The volcano has been dormant for six millennia. Geologists suggest that it will erupt for several more years.
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