Scientists are racing to find out whether the rapid retreat of glaciers could drive a surge in eruptions as magma builds under the island nation — and if so, whether the same might occur at ice-covered volcanoes around the world, putting many lives at risk. Toxic sulphurous gas, carrying the telltale reek of rotten eggs, wafted through vents in the steep walls of Iceland’s Viti crater, while carbon dioxide bubbled to the surface of the milky blue crater lake. Veils of steam wreathed the landscape of loose rock in eerie half-light. Through this forbidding terrain – “Viti” is derived from the Icelandic for “hell” – Michelle Parks, a volcanologist with the Icelandic Meteorological Office, picked her way toward the water’s edge one day last August. With a monitor strapped...
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