Scientist Warns of Fallout From Erupting Volcanoes That Woke Up in 2022

The outgoing year has seen the reawakening of several massive volcanoes, with one of them - Fagradalsfjall off the coast of Iceland – being dormant since the 13th century.

"Most of the volcanic eruptions we see are from chambers of molten rock that are perhaps five to seven kilometers (three miles to four miles) down," Clive Oppenheimer, professor of volcanology at Cambridge University, said.

Touching upon the eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha'apai underwater volcano in the Pacific in January, he said that "it's the first time that the satellites have recorded volcanic material above 50 kilometers (31 miles) in the atmosphere."

According to the professor, "the amount of water that was injected was very significant."

"On the fallout, Oppenheimer said that the eruptions, in particular […] incinerate vegetation and wooden structures in their paths, and that involves a lot of evacuations."

He argued that "the connection between volcanism and society is very much to the fore in Indonesia," where Mount Semeru erupted earlier in December, blanketing roads and homes in volcanic ash and prompting evacuations of almost 2,000 residents in East Java province.

In 2022, an array of dormant volcanoes woke up across the world after sleeping for hundreds of years, among them Mount Edgecumbe near Alaska and Fagradalsfjall off the coast of Iceland.