News Excerpt:

A volcano erupted in Reykjanes peninsula (southwest Iceland), spewing lava and smoke across a wide area after weeks of intense earthquake activity.

More details about the news:

• Due to the volcano eruption, nearly 4,000 inhabitants of the fishing town of Grindavik have been evacuated.
• The crack in the earth's surface was around 3.5 km (2.1 miles) long and had grown rapidly.
• The Reykjanes peninsula in recent years saw several eruptions in unpopulated areas, but the latest outbreak could pose a risk to the inhabitants.
• The area had seen thousands of earthquakes in the last two months but the magnitudes had declined in recent weeks, leading some experts to think the risk of an eruption had abated.

Reykjanes Peninsula

•  It is a volcanic and seismic hot spot southwest of the capital Reykjavik, Iceland.
• The Reykjanes Peninsula runs along the Mid-Atlantic Rift, where the Eurasian and the North American tectonic plates are drifting apart.
• Due to this geological setting, the whole peninsula is extremely volcanically active, covered with moss-coated lava fields and cone-shaped mountains.
• Despite its location between two tectonic plates, there were no recorded volcanic eruptions there for 800 years.
• However, that all changed in March of 2021 when Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted. 
• With a glorious display of fountaining red-hot lava, the eruption lasted for 6 months and drew thousands of people to the site.