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New hints of volcanism under the heart of northern Europe
- f_allwein 6y agoInteresting, but the headline is a bit misleading. „The heart of Northern Europe“ sounds like it’s in the Nordic countries, whereas the study is about the Eifel region, in the West of Germany and pretty close to the heart of Europe.
- lambdasquirrel 6y agoYeah that's kind of a big deal, since there's plenty of known volcanism in Italy. Eifel is still along ways from Pompeii though. To put it another way, I wouldn't worry until they start having hot springs over there.
- PeterStuer 6y agoThe region is full of nuclear plants though.
- dbuder 6y agoGermans are about the only people I trust to dismantle a nuclear reactor due to long term concerns.
- mbeex 6y agoDefine 'region'. Germany as a whole has six nuclear power plants left, with planned shutdowns not after 2022. https://www.bmu.de/themen/atomenergie-strahlenschutz/nukleare-sicherheit/aufsicht-ueber-kernkraftwerke/kernkraftwerke-in-deutschland/ https://www.bmu.de/themen/atomenergie-strahlenschutz/nuklear...
- PeterStuer 6y agoThe German one's are indeed extinguising, but the reactors Thiange (Belgium) and Cattenom (France) are still operational.
- yborg 6y agoOver where? Germany is full of hot springs.
- kaybe 6y agoI wish, I only ever found 'warm' springs.. do you have a recommendation?
- thombat 6y agoEiffel has a cool geyser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallender_Born https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallender_Born
- f_allwein 6y agoThere are hot springs in Aachen, near the German/ Dutch/ Belgian border. They have been known since Roman times though. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aachen
- rob74 6y agoThere are also hot springs all over Hungary (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz%C3%A9chenyi_thermal_bath https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sz%C3%A9chenyi_thermal_bath, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9v%C3%ADz https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/H%C3%A9v%C3%ADz) and the western part of Romania (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C4%83ile_Herculane https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C4%83ile_Herculane, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C4%83ile_Felix https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/B%C4%83ile_Felix), hundreds of kilometers (or miles if you prefer) away from any other form of volcanic activity...
- PeterStuer 6y ago'Northern Europe' used to refer to the UK, France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Luxemburg and West Germany. But since the fall of the Iron Curtain and creation and subsequent expansions of the EU, the name now usually indeed refers to the Nordics.
- flohofwoe 6y ago"Central Europe" appears to be the more correct geographical and cultural term: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Europe As a German I would never consider Germany to be part of "Northern Europe", that's more fitting for the Scandinavian countries.
- tilt_error 6y agoThe definition of what constitutes Europe (the continent) has absolutely nothing to do with either the EU or post WWII war politics. Everything west of the the Black Sea and the Ural Mountains in Russia is part of the European continent. In the context of volcanism, this is the only interpretation possible. Before the Iron Curtain fell, what was then called Western Europe was geographically rather tiny. Even during that political period, Northern Europe was basically Scandinavia and Fennica (the Northern Countries).
- brnt 6y agoWhen you specified Europe-the-continent you already admitted there's another way of seeing things ;)
- rypskar 6y agoMight be a language thing, but Europe the continent is the only definition of Europe I know about
- rob74 6y agoAt least the only lasting definition, anything else is based on geopolitical affiliation and therefore temporary. Of course, the separation of Europe from Asia is also pretty artificial, but at least it's something more or less universally agreed upon...
- dreen 6y agoThose lakes seem to have no flow of water in or out, so I guess they just rely on groundwater flow to refill it, but how come it didnt overgrow and fill up with mud centuries ago?
- s1artibartfast 6y agoA lack of flowing rivers carrying sediment to the lakes probably helps the lakes, there is less mud to fill them up.
- tannhaeuser 6y agoWhat's new about it? The Eifel region (a part of which is literally called Vulkan-Eifel) has been known for centuries if not milleniae for its volcano seas. "Maar" is even part of many city names in that region.
- Etheryte 6y agoPerhaps a better title would be "Hints of new volcanic activity under the Eifel region". The geographic background is well known, but the study finds the activity was larger than expected: > The Eifel area is the only region in the study where the ground motion appeared significantly greater than expected