The team La Venta is about to embark on a new expedition to Iceland. For the fourth time, we are going back to Fagradalsfjall volcano on the Reykjanes Peninsula
In November 2022 our president Francesco Sauro was awarded with a National Geographic Society Grant in support of the "Hraunrásir" project to study the mineralogy and biology of newly formed lava tubes. We return to the volcano two years after the eruptive phase, with the most complex endeavour of this project.
This time we have all the necessary equipment to go deeper inside the still hot lava tubes. We will be able to explore these caves using aluminized suits and breathing apparatus, thanks to the support of the Italian company Icon snc. Samples of metastable minerals will be taken and analyzed on site thanks to Thermo Fisher. With their support we will bring directly to the lava flows a Phenom secondary electron microscope, a feat never accomplished until now. Follow us on our social media pages, we will have many stories to tell in the coming days!
This expedition is made possible thanks to a National Geographic Grant with the participation of scientists from the Department of Pharmacy and Biotechnology of the University of Bologna, the University of Padova, the CNR IBE of Sassari, the IRNAS-CSIC Institute of Seville, the Icelandic Meteorological and Volcanological Center, the Icelandic Institute of Natural History, the University of Iceland, the University of South Florida and with the support of companies leaders in UAV and topographical surveysa Flyability and Vigea.
