Why Iceland’s Volcanic Activity Is Different This Time: It’s All About the Lava

A 9-mile sheet of molten rock tunneling toward the surface of a peninsula in southwestern Iceland has set off hundreds of earthquakes and raised concerns that a volcanic eruption is imminent.

“We haven’t had an eruption close to the population since 1973,” said Ármann Höskuldsson, a research professor in volcanology at the University of Iceland. As a precaution, the nearby town of Grindavik has been evacuated.