10
votes
Iceland hit by thousands of quakes and threat of volcanic eruption – the island nation has experienced increased seismic activity in the past month
Link information
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- Authors
- Deutsche Welle (www.dw.com)
- Published
- Jun 18 2020
- Word count
- 438 words
An Icelandic volcanic eruption similar to the last one would be on par with the general awfulness of 2020. On the plus side, "Grimsvotn" is way easier to pronounce than "Eyjafjallajökull" for the non-initiated.
I was about to make a comment about Scientists have said that the effects of a possible Grimsvotn eruption would be less dramatic than that of Eyjafjallajokull. But instead I'll note that the article calls the thousands of "quakes" thousands of "tremors. "
That might have to do with the fact that this article was published by Deutsche Welle; it seems like a Germanism. In German, the word Beben (tremor) is very commonly used for earthquakes. In fact, the proper term, Erdbeben, is a compound noun derived from this word.
Do Erdbeer and Erdbeben have a similar root for the Erd part?
Yes:
https://en.m.wiktionary.org/wiki/Erdbeere
It literally means "earth berry" or "berry of the soil".
It has the same etymology in Dutch, my native language: