A new volcanic eruption in southeast Iceland on Sunday (Aug. 31) fountained lava nearly 200 feet (60 meters) into the air.

Lava is spewing from the same crack as a small eruption that occurred Friday (Aug. 29). The fissure slices through the 200-year-old Holuhraun lava field, between Bardarbunga volcano and Askja volcano.

The "calm" eruption is 50 times more powerful than Friday's outburst, according to the Iceland Met Office. Lava was streaming from the fissure at 15.9 million gallons per minute (1,000 cubic meters per second) at 7 a.m. local time (3 a.m. ET) on Sunday, three hours after the flare-up began. The basalt flow covered almost 2 miles (3 kilometers) by mid-morning local time. The crack feeding the lava flow has also expanded to the north and south, and is now almost 1 mile (1.5 km) long.

The eruption can be seen on live webcams here and here, though a storm severely lowered visibility Sunday.

Emergency officials briefly raised the aviation alert warning to red, but no commercial flights have been affected.

After an earthquake hit in the area, a volcanic eruption occurred Friday in Iceland, resulting in a temporary no-fly order.

The eruption started in Holuhraun, north of the Dyngjujökull Glacier, which is located in northern Vatnajökull, just after midnight Friday, local time, the Icelandic Meteorological Office said.

Scientists who are in the area close to the eruption estimate that the volcanic fissure in Holuhraun is about 1 km (0.62 miles) long, according to the Iceland Civil Protection Department.

Four likely scenarios exist for future seismic and volcanic activity in the area, government officials said.

They include the migration of magma stopping, which would result in a gradual reduction in seismic activity and no further eruptions; a dike could reach the Earth's surface north of Dyngjujökull causing another eruption, possibly on a new fissure; or an eruption occurs again where either the fissure is partly or entirely beneath Dyngjujökull and likely produce a flood in Jökulsá á Fjöllum and perhaps explosive, ash-producing activity, according to the Met Office website.

The fourth scenario is for Bardarbunga to erupt, causing an outburst flood and possibly an explosive, ash-producing activity.

The mystery of the hundreds of dead birds found in eastern Lancaster County the night after a violent storm on July 27 has been solved.

A deadly downward rush of air, known as a microburst, uprooted roosting songbirds from trees in the Leola, Gordonville and Bird-in-Hand areas and slammed them around.

"It appears they were literally blown into the tree branches, the ground - even into each other," says Greg Graham, the Pennsylvania Game Commission's wildlife conservation officer for northeastern Lancaster County.

"It doesn't happen often."

The unusual microburst conclusion was reached after the Game Commission sent the refrigerated carcasses of three robins and two house finches to the diagnostic section of the Southeastern Cooperative Wildlife Disease Study Lab in Athens, Georgia.

The birds were among about 150 collected by Graham on July 28 from four locations within 150 yards from each other in the Magnolia Drive and Ricklin Drive areas near Leola. Most were robins with a few wrens, sparrows and grackles mixed in.

Some birds survived the event but later died.

The ongoing disaster that is the drought in the West is leaving wells dry across California - which account for up to 60% of water usage. As WSJ reports, as groundwater levels plunge (100 feet or more lower than norm), wells are being driven further and further into the earth (500 feet in some cases) forcing the state legislature is considering regulating underground water for the first time. "We can't continue to pump groundwater at the rates we are and expect it to continue in the future," warns one engineer, adding "What's scary is we're not fixing anything... It's a race to the bottom."

"Everybody was pumping to their heart's content, until they realized the basin isn't that big."

As WSJ reports, "Groundwater was kind of out of sight, out of mind," said Lester Snow, executive director of the California Water Foundation, a nonprofit policy group in Sacramento, and former director of the state Department of Water Resources. But now...

With groundwater levels falling across the Golden State - causing dried-up wells, sinking roadbeds and crumbling infrastructure - the state legislature is considering regulating underground water for the first time.

Californians have long battled over rights to rivers, lakes and other surface-water supplies, but the drought is finally shifting the focus to groundwater, which accounts for about 40% of water used in normal years - and up to 60% in drought years, as other sources dry up.

A Russian Air Force transport Il-76 plane will carry a humanitarian aid cargo to Serbia, a spokesman for the Russian Defence Ministry press service told reporters on Saturday.

The Il-76 was being loaded in Chkalovsky. Electricity supply stations, motor pumps, water tanks and about 250 thermoses would be brought on board, he said.

It is not the first humanitarian cargo for Serbia from Russia, he added.

Russia provided humanitarian aid for Serbia in May this year after the devastating flood.

Restless volcanoes from around the world spew ash, steam, and concern in their wake.

The Mount Tavurvur volcano in eastern Papua New Guinea jolted awake early Friday morning, belching rocks, ash, and steam (see above) nearly 60,000 feet (18,288 meters) into the air.

Local residents evacuated their homes on Friday, and Qantas Airways modified flight paths for planes heading to Tokyo and Shanghai from Sydney, Australia, according to news reports. (Watch video: "Volcano 101.")

The last time Mount Tavurvur erupted, in 1994 - at the same time as nearby Mount Vulcan - both volcanoes destroyed the town of Rabaul in Papua New Guinea.

* Two seriously injured in attack by wolves driven mad by hunger

* One victim has ear torn clean off, while others suffer scratches to face

* Starving beasts attacked humans after drought killed off their usual prey

These shocking images show the horrifying injuries suffered by villagers in China when a pack of starving wolves attacked.

Up to five of the animals surrounded the small farming community before viciously mauling the six people living there, leaving two seriously injured in a previously unheard of attack.

One of the victims had their ear torn off by the wolves, who had been driven mad by hunger, while others suffered bites and scratches to the face, neck and chest.

Circleville, Piute County - Farmers in southern Utah are scratching their heads and trying to figure out what caused an unusual phenomenon in an irrigation pond.

Earlier this week, Gary Dalton of Circleville discovered a mysterious crater that suddenly appeared under the water.

"The sun was just right," Dalton said, "so I saw this blasted thing that no one had ever seen."

He noticed it after most of the water was drained from the pond for irrigation. Just beneath the surface he saw concentric circles in the pond bottom with a diameter of about 25 feet. The outer ring is a circular depression filled with algae. An inner circle looks as though something erupted from beneath, forming what looks startlingly like a small volcanic crater.

"My heck, I guess that's Martian art," Dalton said. "I don't know."

Experts from the Utah Geological Survey took a look and were initially baffled.

"Well, yeah, we've got several theories," said veteran geologist Bill Lund as he examined the pond. "Most of them have gone up in smoke."

Most of the theories were disposed of almost immediately. Some had speculated that the feature was caused by a natural spring, pushing up from under the pond after being supercharged by recent rains. But Lund said that theory was quickly disproved by aerial photos that were taken before the pond was excavated 2 ½ years ago.

"This was an alfalfa field and there was no spring here," Lund said. "It's not a spring."

Another theory was that a buried pipeline had been punctured during construction of the pond. But Lund said there is no pipeline.

Another possibility is that there was a burp of methane gas from decaying organic material under the pond. Lund strongly doubts that theory because the local geology isn't the type that sometimes causes such events.

"If we were in coal country," Lund said, "I'd be thinking about that a little harder but, you know, we're not."

A deer crashed into the windows of Rebos on Wednesday afternoon, shattering one of the two panes.

There is no significant damage to the restaurant and nobody was injured.

The deer was still breathing when ABC9 crews arrived at the scene.

Customers and staff say they were pretty shaken up about the whole ordeal.

"It was about the noon hour and it sounded like, I don't know what it was. All we heard was a big giant crash, a very loud band and everything in the restaurant stopped," said Ryan Brun, Rebos bartender.

Residents near an erupting volcano in Papua New Guinea are waiting to see if they need to evacuate, and a giant ash cloud is affecting some flights to and from Australia.

Mt Tavurvur, in East New Britain province, began erupting overnight. The volcano destroyed nearby Rabaul township in 1994, and residents fear a repeat, PNGLoop reported.

Authorities were still considering the situation.

The eruption, which began between around 3.30am local time, caused explosions strong enough to rattle residents' windows.

Ash covered Rabaul and shops were closed, but otherwise life was continuing as normal, PNGLoop reported.