The year was 1159 BC.
Over the past 40 years, a series of catastrophes had struck the Mediterranean, causing many
regional Bronze Age cultures to collapse or nearly collapse like a series of dominoes.
Then, a series of devastating famines struck ancient Egypt.
While the cause of the preceding disaster is still debated to this day, the famines
which Egypt experienced were likely caused by a massive eruption of a distant volcano.
In Iceland, the young volcano known as Hekla had recently produced its largest eruption
on record, causing large parts of what is now the northern United Kingdom to become
temporarily uninhabitable.
In total, what is known as the Hekla-3 eruption ejected at least 7.3 cubic kilometers of volcanic
rock in a massive VEI 5 eruption which was 27 times larger than the 2010 eruption of
Eyjafjallajökull which grounded European air traffic for a month.
While this eruption did represent Hekla's largest known event, this volcano has a history
of incredibly large explosive eruptions.
In fact, its average eruption given a VEI designation is a VEI 4, which is large enough
to cause devastating effects to the region surrounding a volcano.
Although this volcano's recent eruptions have been generally smaller, there is a likelihood
that this highly active volcano will produce more large magnitude eruptions.
For context, the Hekla volcano is located in southern Iceland where it is 39 kilometers
east-northeast of the city of Hella.
Hekla is a strange volcano, as it could be both classified as a fissure system and a
stratovolcano, although neither descriptive term is a perfect fit for this volcano.
It is part of a 40 kilometer long fissure which trends to the northeast, but the main
portion of the volcano is only 5.5 kilometers in length.
Yet, unlike other regional fissure systems, it erupts a more viscous basaltic andesite
lava rather than basalt lava.
Hekla owes its existence to both the underlying Iceland hotspot and the eastern volcanic zone.
As part of the eastern volcanic zone, the land is spreading apart to the east and west,
allowing magma to intrude into a series of fissure and cracks which act as a path of
least resistance.
Eventually, this magma reaches the surface, producing an assortment of volcanoes such
as Hekla.
Despite its size, Hekla is a surprisingly young volcano, as it only began forming approximately
7,000 years ago.
Although it may have had an eruption as much as 8,000 years ago, this oldest eruption has
an unusually large margin of error.
Thus, it is quite possible that Hekla was born through a massive VEI 5 eruption which
was similar in magnitude to the 1980 eruption of Mount Saint Helens.
These early eruptions often occurred at more than a dozen vents simultaneously, sending
a plume of ash well beyond a height of 20 kilometers into the atmosphere.
After another major explosive eruption in 1104, Hekla's eruptive style appears to have
become slightly less explosive and eruptions became more frequent.
However, this may simply be a fact that smaller explosive eruptions are harder to find evidence
of than larger ones in rock formations.
Regardless, by then, Hekla had grown to a height of 1,490 meters above sea level, and
its overlapping cones had formed a prominent raised ridge rather than a central peak.
Since then, eruptions have increasingly produced voluminous lava flows which have travelled
up to 15 kilometers away from the volcano.
It is possibly due to these abundant lava flows that the volcano received the nickname
of the "Gateway to Hell".
While Hekla has not produced a VEI 5 eruption since 1104, it did go on to produce 8 more
VEI 4 eruptions. 7 eruptions have occurred since 1913, the last of which was in 2000.
Interestingly, this volcano is surprisingly difficult to predict.
Warning signs such as earthquake swarms often appear as little as 30 to 90 minutes before
an eruption, and since this volcano is a common hiking spot this could potentially be deadly.
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