Volcanic Eruption

Mount Belinda, located on the Montagu island in South Sandwich Islands in the Atlantic is spewing its guts these days. The South Sandwich Islands are situated approximately between the southern tip of South America and mainland Antarctica. What’s so special is that eruptions on ice sheets are exceedingly rare. The island is quite close to the Antarctic land mass, covered completely by ice and snow, glaciers extend over the land and form steep vertical cliffs where they meet the ocean, and is home to a large population of chinstrap penguins.

The picture shows clearly why they are called chinstrap as they have a thin curved line of black feathers running under the chin. Of the several penguin species, they are one of the most common penguins in the world actually. Most of us are used to seeing chinstrapless-penguins normally I think. Well back to the eruption, it was first noticed on November 30, 2005 and we have already some really breathtaking pictures from satellite. Volcano experts are understandably absolutely thrilled….

"I'd give my right arm to be down there now," says John Smellie, a volcano expert at the British Antarctic Survey in Cambridge, UK. "It's very rare that we get to make direct observations of eruptions under ice sheets."

This is a satellite picture of the island (Image Courtesy NASA Earth Observatory), taken in 2004. Belinda has been showing signs of activity since 2001.