Volcano was studied by City College instructor

By Sara JenkinsContributing Writer

The Icelandic volcano  which began erupting in April, continues to wreak havoc on airlines, and  may pose health and environmental concerns — was the research thesis of  a City College instructor.

Department chair of earth sciences  Katryn Wiese did her graduate work at Oregon State University on  Eyjafjallajökull, the volcano now erupting and spewing ash across  Europe.

Wiese, a professor of geology and oceanography, got  excited about the unusual volcanic activity — not every volcanologist is  lucky enough to have their graduate work end up as global news.

“By  studying the chemical changes in the old lava layers we can understand  how and what types of magmas are cooking underneath,” she said.

Video  footage on the website of the London-based publication The Guardian  shows large billowing clouds of black smoke, which have left large parts  of Iceland covered in toxic gray ash.

Studying the volcano that  closed down air traffic for a week "was exciting and unexpected,” Weise  said.

The Iceland island sits on a volcanic hot spot in the  mid-Atlantic ridge where eruptions are relatively common according to  The Guardian.

“This volcano produces lavas with a wide  compositional range. This is not typical in an ocean setting," Wiese  said.

Volcanoes in oceanic settings, like those in Hawaii and  Iceland, usually produce lava with a low silica content which means they  have low explosiveness, she said. The high silica content of magmas  from the current Eyjafjallajökull eruption is what gives this volcano  its high explosiveness.

Volcanologists can predict how long these  eruptions will last by looking at historic data and studying old lava  flows, Wiese said. The last eruption of this particular volcano in 1812  lasted for two years.