Italy is to help Iceland in the perforation process of the Krafla volcano located in the north of the country.
The news that the southern European nation is to help its northern counterpart in the Krafla Magma Drilling Project (IMDP) was announced by the Italian National Institute of Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV) on Tuesday.
The project has been designed as a way of helping to learn the conditions that lead to a volcanic eruption, and look at the possibilities of extracting energy when conditions are deemed “secure” from similar volcanoes across Europe. The Krafla volcano was particularly active between the mid-1970s and mid-80s, erupting on a number of occasions.
Over the summer months, the researchers from INGV will carry out experiments on Krafla and define, via measurements, the volcano’s state before the perforation operations and attempt to gather footage of the magmatic chamber, where the perforation is to take place.
The International Continental Scientific Drilling Program (ICDP) is to finance the project; it also collaborates with the INGV of preliminary studies relating to the perforation of the Phlegraean Fields – a volcanic region located in a national park west of Naples.