Apparently Iceland has just recently closed its two main airports – Keflavik International Airport and Reykjavik Airport – in preparation for a very powerful volcano eruption. Just last weekend, an eruption occurred that shot lava high into the sky. Transatlantic flights have been rerouted to avoid the risk of ash blocking visibility and plane engines being destroyed. The volcano that erupted, Eyjafijallajokull volcano, lies just 120 km southeast of Reykjavik.

Almost 500 people have already been evacuated from the local area. It was initially feared that the volcano had erupted directly underneath the Eyjafijallajokull glacier. This could have led to glacial melting, flooding and mudslides. However, experts now believe that the volcano blew in between the Eyjafjallajokull and the larger Mydalsjoekull glacier.

However, now the greater danger is that the small volcano is only the start and that it will spark the far more powerful volcano of Katla beneath Mydaljoekull to erupt as well. Dave McGarvie, the senior lecturer at the Volcano Dynamics Group of the Open University, said that the other volcano erupting has to be out on the table for the moment. If it does go off, it will be much nastier than the tiny one that just erupted.

Eyjafjallajokull has already blown three times in the past thousand years. The three times have been 920AD, 1612, and between 1821 and 1823. Each time it set off Katla, thus, the likelihood of Katla blowing is very high, and it could happen in a few weeks or a few months.

Iceland happens to be built on a volcanic rock on the Atlantic’s mid-oceanic ridge. The island’s worst eruption in modern times was in 1783, when the Laki volcano erupted. The lava shot up to heights of 1.4 kilometers, and more than 120 million tonnes of sulphur dioxide was released into the atmosphere