Uh Oh... Iceland's Katla May Go Off Soon...

2nd Iceland volcano issues warning: Scientists say powerful Katla is ‘close to failure’ (5/27/2010 MSNBC)

"LONDON - A second, much larger volcano in Iceland is showing signs that it may be about to erupt, scientists have warned.

"Since the start of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption, which caused cancellations of thousands of flights in Europe because of a giant ash cloud, there has been much speculation about neighboring Katla.
"An initial research paper by the University College of London Institute for Risk and Disaster Reduction said: "Analysis of the seismic energy released around Katla over the last decade or so is interpreted as providing evidence of a rising ... intrusive magma body on the western flank of the volcano."

""Earlier seismic energy release at Katla is associated with the inflation of the volcano, which indicates it is close to failure, although this does not appear to be linked to seismicity around Eyjafjallajökull," it added.

""We conclude that given the high frequency of Katla activity, an eruption in the short term is a strong possibility," the report said. "It is likely to be preceded by new earthquake activity. Presently there is no unusual seismicity under Katla."" [Emphasis is mine. The article continues.]

Natural (like these Icelandic volcanos) or man-made (Gulf of Mexico oil spill, 'flash crash' of the US stock market, euro crisis), when things go out of control they seem to do so all at once. Not a gradual, orderly disintegration but a sudden, violent dislocation.

These events are 'complex systems' where the whole is more than its parts. Such a system tends to go haywire seemingly all of a sudden, as chaos theory predicts.

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Stock Futures Are Bright Red..

Dow -190, S&P 500 -23.90, Nazdaq 100 -35.75. Screen shot from Bloomberg.



Ostensible reasons: North Korea threat, Euro debt crisis. Could be true, and a whole lot more that we don't know about.

When a complex system collapses, it is not a gradual, orderly decline over a long period of time. All it takes is a trigger, any trigger. It doesn't need to be a big one either.

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