Buried deep in the east coast of England, scientists have discovered an enormous ancient volcano several times more powerful than Mount Etna (pictured above).<\/p>\n
The volcano, which lies under the counties of Norfolk and Lincolnshire, erupted with the force of several thousand hydrogen bombs 454.4 million years ago, blowing ash all the way to Scandinavia.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Researchers believe it is responsible for forming the \u2018Kinnekulle tephra\u2019 \u2013 an enormous bed of volcanic ash still found today across Norway, Sweden, the Baltic region, Belarus and Poland.\u00a0<\/p>\n
This remarkable discovery is \u201creshaping our understanding of England\u2019s deep geological past\u201d, said Dr Tim Pharaoh<\/a>, a geophysicist at the British Geological Survey and lead author of the study<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n The clues that this previously hidden volcano existed lay in rock samples taken from two boreholes spaced 65km (40.4mi) apart in Norfolk and Lincolnshire.<\/p>\n But the ancient volcano may have spanned an area far bigger than 65km.\u00a0<\/p>\n