Pitt professor seeks answers in Icelandic volcanoes

A Pitt scientist hopes to record Earth’s previous temperatures by looking at volcanoes in… A Pitt scientist hopes to record Earth’s previous temperatures by looking at volcanoes in Iceland that erupted under thick ice.

Ian Skilling, a Pitt professor in geology and planetary sciences, has spearheaded a project to research these volcanoes.

“Iceland has volcanoes and a lot of ice outside,” Skilling said.

Aside from Australia and Antarctica, it’s the only place to complete this kind of research, he said.

In Iceland, he said, volcanoes erupt under sheets of ice. Skilling and his fellow researchers will look at the volcanoes that previously erupted under ice and those sheets of ice that have melted away, leaving the exposed rock underneath visible.

Volcanic rock shows indications — or ¬records the thickness — of the ice that covered it when the volcano erupted, said Skilling, who is currently working on two other projects in Iceland. By examining different volcanoes where the ice covering them melted away, scientists can determine the difference in ice thickness, he said.

By observing the thickness of ice at the time of the eruption, researchers can infer how cold Earth was during the era the volcano erupted, Skilling said.

He and his team, which includes a graduate student known for her expertise on volcanic rock and colleagues from Iceland and England, will look at volcanoes that are thousands of years old. These volcanoes, Skilling said, allow researchers to gather information about how climate change has progressed throughout Earth’s past.

Skilling and his research team are building a database of the change in ice thickness over Earth’s history. Having new knowledge of Earth’s past, Skilling said, might make it easier for scientists to predict climate change in the future.

Skilling received $118,000 from the Natural Science Foundation for the project, which will span three years. Skilling will work in central Iceland this summer but will do the rest of his research from Pittsburgh.

“I have been going to Iceland since the late 1980s,” Skilling said. “I like how challenging it is [researching ice thickness with regards to climate change]. It’s not something where you can just go and pick up a rock sample.”

Sonia Esperanca works as a program manager in the division of earth sciences at the Natural Science Foundation. “[Mr. Skilling’s] project was one of the projects that was reviewed very highly,” she said. She noted that Iceland had mixed temperature variations over the past 10,000 years was a weather phenomenon.

Skilling said there are few people who use volcanoes to see ice thickness and relate their findings to Earth’s climate change.

“I’ve been looking at volcanoes for about 20 years,” Skilling said. “This aspect is slightly new with looking at the ice with comparison to Earth’s climate change,” he said.