Minor Volcanic Eruptions Underwater Can Create Havoc, Resulting to Ash Clouds, Landslides, and Major World Issues

The focus on studying volcanos is mostly on huge ones that would likely have bigger volcanic eruptions. However, they are less likely to happen than small underwater volcanos. Researchers from the University of Cambridge argue that too much focus is given to massive yet rare volcanic eruptions and less attention to the potential domino effects of minor volcanic eruptions.

Science Daily reported that the team from the university's Center for the Study of Existential Risk (CSER) identified seven "pinch points," which include the regions of volcano groups in Taiwan, the North Atlantic, North Africa, and the northwestern United States. Clusters of small but active volcanos that sit alongside vital infrastructure could cause global chaos when volcanic eruptions from this area happen.

The full report of the findings of the study titled "Global Catastrophic Risk From Lower Magnitude Volcanic Eruptions" was published in the journal Nature Communications.

Small but Terrible Minor Volcanic Eruptions

Report's lead author Dr. Lara Mani from CSER said that even minor volcanic eruptions in any of the areas they identified could generate enough ash and large tremors that can disrupt underwater cables or vital industries that are central to the global supply chain and economic systems.

At present, the attention is more on how much damage could big volcanos inflict if they erupted. However, Mani and her colleagues said that smaller volcanos underwater could also rank up to six on the volcanic explosivity index once they erupt, Science Daily reported. They could easily produce ash clouds, mudflow, and landslides that are harmful to underwater cables. This could lead to financial market shutdowns or cause food shortages and political distress.

In other words, these certain groups of volcanos identified in the seven 'pinch points' could easily cascade to global chaos if ever they erupt in some manner of coordination and cause adverse impacts that are comparable to the eruption of a single volcano.

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Seven 'Pinch Point' Areas

According to a news article in CVBJ, minor volcanic eruptions in economically relevant areas could mean greater material losses than large eruptions in some regions.

For instance, the 2010 volcanic eruptions in Iceland were smaller compared to the 1991 Mt. Pinatubo eruption in the Philippines. However, experts said that the volcanic eruptions in Iceland were six times larger than the latter due to its strategic location for infrastructure and communications in Europe.

Moreover, if the region in Taiwan is paralyzed because of minor volcanic eruptions, it could also result in the global industry stopping. It is because the country is a vital area for the production of microchips, an important industry for the global economy.

Also, another pinch point is in the Mediterranean. Mani said that the blockage less than a week in the Suez Canal earlier this year showed what would happen if operations in this area are stopped, especially when a single container ship stuck could cost up to $10 billion.

Other pinch points also include regions in the Pacific Northwest that could cause shutdowns of airports and seaports, highly active volcanic centers along the Indonesian archipelago in the Strait of Malacca, the Luzon Strait that is also a key shipping route, and the pinch point in the Chinese-North Korean border.