A volcano has erupted in Iceland near the capital Reykjavik after thousands of small earthquakes in the area in recent weeks, the Icelandic meteorological office has said.

A red cloud lit up the night sky after the eruption began in Fagradalsfjall on Friday about 40km from the capital Reykjavik. A no-fly zone has been established in the area but the eruption appeared to be calmer as of Saturday evening.

Streams of red lava could be seen flowing out of a crack in the ground which is estimated to be about 200 meters long.

Police and coastguard officials raced to the scene late on Friday and the public has been advised to stay away from the area.

More than 40,000 earthquakes have occurred in the area in the past four weeks, a huge jump from the 1,000-3,000 earthquakes registered each year since 2014.

The Krysuvik volcanic system does not have a central volcano. While the country’s largest airport and a small fishing port are only a few kilometers away, the area is uninhabited and the eruption is not expected to present any danger.

Volcanic eruptions in the region are known as effusive eruptions, where lava flows steadily out of the ground, as opposed to explosive ones such as that of Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 which shot ash clouds high into the sky and paralyzed air traffic in Europe for weeks. However, all flights in and out of the airport have been stopped.

The Krysuvik volcanic system has been inactive for the past 900 years, according to the meteorological office, while the last eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula (半岛) dates back almost 800 years to 1240.

But the region has been closely watched for several weeks after an earthquake of magnitude 5.7 was registered on 24 February on the outskirts of Reykjavik, followed by an unusual number of smaller quakes — more than 50,000, the highest number since digital recordings began in 1991.

Today’s journalists face modern challenges. Online media platforms are springing up. And the lowly newspaper---and its reporters---are fighting money, tech, and distrust issues. Journalism students and teachers must emphasize new skills to keep their profession alive.

A trustworthy press helps inform people and monitor all levels of government. That is essential to a nation. Yet this useful establishment is growing increasingly unpopular. According to the University of North Carolina (UNC), newsroom jobs across the Country are fewer than half what they were 10 years ago. And on many college campuses, the news about the news is bleak too.

Take the Syracuse, New York, student-run newspaper The Daily Orange: It isn’t daily anymore. The paper prints just three times each week. Next year, The Diamondback of the University of Maryland will be online only. Half the newspapers that still exist on paper say they don’t print as many copies. And UNC’s The Daily Tar Heel has cut staff pay and rented cheaper offices to make its budget.

Considering the problems in journalism, it’s surprising that the enrollment(注册人数) in college journalism programs is up. The Daily Orange managing editor Catherine Leffert calls the layoffs and cutbacks disheartening. “But what keeps me wanting to be a journalist is seeing the effect that The Daily Orange has,” he says.

But journalism educators wonder, “Are we preparing young people for a dying industry?” Years ago, journalism graduates took low-level reporter jobs at newspapers or television stations. That still happens. But today’s jobs more often involve digital editing, social media production, and video streaming. Some universities are taking action. The University of Florida offers a sports media program. Several schools highlight statistics-driven data journalism.

The news isn’t all bad. Journalism professor Kathleen Culver says, “When I look at 18-and 20-year-olds in journalism and see what they want to do, I’m optimistic.” Maddy Arrowood is the student editor of The Daily Tar Heel. She says her experience makes her more interested in a journalism career, not less. Her optimism “comes from knowing that people still need news. They still need information.”

Off the coast of Formentera, an island, lives seagrass that stretches 15 km. The seagrass, covering several kilometers, is made up of a single organism. The grasses are also long-lived, for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. Along with two other kinds of coastal ecosystem—mangrove swamps and tidal marshes—seagrass fields are particularly good at taking carbon dioxide from the air.

This role was highlighted in a report published on March 2nd by UNESCO, on “blue carbon” —the carbon stored by Earth’s oceanic and coastal ecosystems. In total around 3,300 million tons of carbon dioxide (about three-quarters of the world’s emissions in 2019) are locked away in the planet’s blue-carbon sinks. Research by Carlos Duarte, the report’s author and an ecologist, has shown that one hectare of seagrass can suck as much carbon dioxide each year as 15 hectares of rainforest.

One reason that blue-carbon ecosystems make such effective sinks is that underwater forests are thicker than the land-based woods. They can also trap floating pieces and organic matter, which settles on the sea floor and can double the amount of carbon stored away. They possess another advantage, too. Climate change is leading to more wildfires around the world. As forests burn, their carbon stocks are sent back into the atmosphere. Unlike forests on land, blue-carbon ecosystems do not burn.

Blue-carbon ecosystems may not be fired, but they remain affected by other sorts of disasters. In May 2020 cyclone Amphan destroyed 1,200 square kilometers of mangrove forests. A marine heatwave in Australian waters in 2010 and 2011 damaged around one third of the world’s largest seagrass field in Shark Bay. Mangrove forests can weaken or control waves and provide natural barriers to storm surges. Protecting and expanding them, then, appears to be a must.