An image from NASA reveals heat leaking from the cracks of New Iceland!

Centuries-old volcanic fissures in Iceland, spewing hot lava, have alarmed residents of the nearby town of Grindavik.

Lava flowing from one of the fissures engulfed several homes. The danger appears to be easing, with seismic activity decreasing and the level of risk warnings lowering, although still high.

But Grindavik is still at risk of rift movements, lava flows and more fissures appearing without warning, as of January 19 when the Icelandic Meteorological Office issued its latest update.

New satellite images released by NASA also show how much heat is still escaping from fissures near Grindavik, a fault line that had been quiet for 800 years before this sudden burst of volcanic activity.

The map shows the heat emanating from the broken land surface, which was detected by the thermal infrared sensor aboard NASA's Landsat 9 satellite. Although the temperature scale is not specific, it reveals the enormous size of the fissures boiling with lava.

The map data was collected on January 16, 2024, two days after two fissures opened near Grindavik, on January 14.

Lava flows from a previous eruption in December 2023 are still very hot.

However, what the map does not show are the underground incursions of magma that flowed towards Grindavik and the wave of earthquakes that prompted authorities to evacuate the city in January, for the second time in a matter of months.

An earlier image produced last year shows lava flows that poured out of the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system northeast of Grindavik in March 2021, August 2022, and July 2023, burning the ground black.

In March 2021, another NASA satellite, working in conjunction with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), captured the moment when the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted for the first time.

Iceland is one of the most volcanically active places on Earth, as it sits atop a mid-ocean ridge that slowly separates and a mantle plume rises from below.

Chinese scientists: The settlement of the "roof of the world" began 50 thousand years ago

The Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, also known as the "Roof of the World," has been inhabited for at least 50,000 years.

The Chinese "Xinhua" agency said that this matter was evident through the results of the study of excavation materials in the (Meilong Taghphog) cave in the Ngari region (Tibet Autonomous Region of the People's Republic of China).

It was previously believed that people arrived in this high mountainous region under harsh natural conditions about 40,000 years ago.

After 6 years of excavation, archaeologists from the Institute for the Protection of Cultural Relics in Tibet and the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology at the Chinese Academy of Sciences discovered an area of ​​more than 1,000 square meters containing more than 10,000 artifacts, including stone, bone, and bronze products, ceramic vessels, and plant remains, dating back to Paleolithic to early Iron Age.

According to Zhang Xiaolin, a researcher at the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology, the oldest artifacts in the cave were made more than 53,000 years ago, and perhaps even 80,000 years ago.

In addition, rock drawings with vertical lines and human figures painted with red ochre were discovered in the cave.

According to the study, humans left the cave due to climatic factors or landslides, and then returned to it at a later period.

In the cave, cultural layers dating back to different periods were excavated, allowing conclusions to be drawn about people's attempts to adapt to life in harsh conditions at an altitude of about 4.7 thousand meters above sea level. Scientists also obtained information about the migrations of ancient people in these places and the forms of their social organization.