14 DAY TRIAL // 58-million-year-old Ardnamurchan volcano in Scotland has not three, but one magma chamber, a recent paper in the journal Scientific Reports argues.
Thus, a 3D model pieced together by scientists led by researchers at the Uppsala University in Sweden shows that, contrary to popular opinion, cone sheets, i.e. ring-like structures that form when magma pushes towards the surface, in the area were created by a single magma pulse, and not three distinct ones.
“After projecting hundreds of cone sheets in the computer model, we were unable to identify three separate centers,” says Dr. Steffi Burchardt with the Uppsala University.
Furthermore, “The cone sheets instead appear to originate from a single, large, and elongate magma chamber about 1.5 km [0.93 miles] below today’s land surface.”
Live Science tells us that it was 83 years ago when geologists James Richey and Herbert Thomas first analyzed the cone sheets in this part of Scotland and concluded that the Ardnamurchan volcano had three magma chambers beneath it.
According to this new 3D model of the area, their assumptions were wrong.