Scientists worry about the immense smouldering fire beneath Antarctica

Beneath the vast white continent, several kilometres below, numerous active volcanoes, such as Mount Erebus, could accelerate the melting of the ice sheet. Let's delve a little deeper into this immense smouldering fire.

While the ice sheet is currently being disrupted by climate change, leading to an acceleration of glacier melting, subglacial volcanoes could erupt.

The continued thinning of this thick ice layer, according to the numerical simulations of a team of researchers, would impact the size and number of subglacial eruptions which, if increased, could initiate an infernal chain reaction, highlights Futura-sciences.

Excessive pressure

If the pressure exerted by the ice sheet on the volcanoes, and more specifically on the magma reservoirs, decreases, the melting of the glaciers could cause magma decompression and lead to the formation of gas bubbles. As highlighted by Futura-sciences, the pressure inside the chamber (or reservoir) itself would then begin to rise, causing magma to ascend through volcanic conduits and the onset of an eruption. And it's precisely the increase in the frequency of subglacial eruptions that would be the cause of the acceleration of the ice sheet's melting, its thinning and thereby new eruptions... and so forth.

A phenomenon that will unfold over hundreds of years and doesn't invoke a catastrophic scenario but nevertheless shows the enormous impact of human activity on Earth's mechanisms, no matter how vast they may be.

(MH with Raphael Liset - Source: Futura-sciences - Illustration: ©Unsplash)