LPL Associate Professor Christopher Hamilton is a National Science Foundation (NSF)-Fulbright Arctic Scholar currently working from the University of Iceland to document the products and impacts of Icelandic flood lava eruptions. On February 21, 2021, an earthquake swarm began on the Reykjanes Peninsula, near the capital of Reykjavik, and on March 3, volcanic tremor was identified—signaling magma movement within the crust. Considering a volcanic eruption to be imminent, Christopher worked with Solange Duhamel, Associate Professor with UArizona's Molecular and Cellular Biology Department (with a faculty appointment in LPL), to obtain support to investigate the eruption.

With initial support from the university's Research, Innovation, and Impact Office and the NSF Rapid Response Research Program, Solange and Christopher have been developing times-series monitoring of the geomorphology and microbiology of the Reykjanes region, before and after the start of the eruption, which began on March 19 at 8:45 p.m. GMT. LPL graduate student Joana Voigt and Research Specialist Michael Christoffersen traveled to Iceland in April to conduct novel measurements of the active eruption using drones (i.e., Unoccupied Aircraft Systems) and other state-of-the-art instruments to contribute to Iceland's volcano monitoring effort and address fundamental questions related to planetary volcanism and astrobiology. The eruption will continue into the summer, providing additional opportunities for students to develop first-hand observations of this unique event as a planetary analog.