Lighting a cigarette Iceland style
Forgot your lighter? Use a glowing red rock of molten lava from an erupting volcano.
Picture taken by Bergur at the 2010 eruption on Fimmvörðuháls.
Anonymous asked: how volcanic eruption occur in iceland
Iceland gets angry sometimes and trembles. Blowing steam is not always enough for it. Then eruptions occur.
Vestmannaeyjar
Just off the southern coast of Iceland lies a small archipelago called Vestmannaeyjar. Since I’ve been out skiing for the past week and neglecting the site, i’ll give you a good post today. Vestmannaeyjar is one of the most interesting places in Iceland and often overlooked, since you either need to fly or take the ferry.
The archipelago consists of 15 islands and around 30 islets. Several of the islands were inhabited permanently or seasonally in the past, but today only the main island Heimaey (E. Home Island) is inhabited. Just over 4000 people live in the town on Heimaey.
Vestmannaeyjar is loaded with history. The name which means “Islands of west men” is thought to be derived from Ingólfur Árnason. Ingólfur who came to Iceland in the year 874 is generally considered the first settler of Iceland. The tales of him will have to wait for a later post. However, his first winter he put up camp on the cape of Ingólfshöfði (close to Skaftafell), while his brother Hjörleifur Árnason camped on Hjörleifshöfði (close to Vík). The following spring Ingólfur sailed west and discovered that his brother had been murdered by his slaves. From Hjörleifshöfði you can see Vestmannaeyjar, and he correctly assumed that the slaves were hiding there. Naturally, being a viking he chased them around the islands and killed them all. Several places in the islands bear the name of the slave killed there. Since these slaves were Irish, they were called Vestmenn (E. West Men) by the Scandinavians and hence the name Vestmannaeyjar.
The islands have been inhabited at least since the 10th century, but the population has thrice been cut down considerably. First by pirates, second by sickness and finally by an eruption.
In 1627 about half the population (242 people) were abducted by pirates in an event called Tyrkjaránið (E. The Turkish Abductions). Many more were taken in other parts of the country. This event caused great fear in Iceland and lives strongly in the collective memory of Icelanders. An Icelandic urban legend says that after the abductions, it was legal to kill all Turks in Iceland, until somebody noticed that the law was still in place when Turkey played in the Handball World Cup in Reykjavík in 1995. That’s probably not entirely true and would be quite unfortunate, especially since the pirates weren’t really Turks. They were mostly Moroccans and Algerians under the command of a Dutchman acting on orders of the Ottoman Empire. Some of the people eventually managed to return to Iceland. The most famous of them was Guðríður Símonardóttir who later married one of Iceland’s most renowned poets, Hallgrímur Pétursson.
The second cut in the population occurred in the 18th century when lots of people got sick and died. That’s not as interesting as violence and volcanoes, so let’s turn to the next one.
On the 23rd of January 1973 the people in Heimaey were awaken by an eruption. At first people thought it was a grassfire lit by some kids, but it actually turned out to be a large eruption. More than half of the towns houses were destroyed or severely damaged. Many houses caught fire as molten lava rocks were scattered across the town, others collapsed under the weight of ash on the roofs and about 300 houses were completely engulfed by lava. My mother in law’s house for example is buried deep under the new mountain. Fortunately nobody died during the eruption. Bad weather had preceded the eruption and all the ships were in harbor. This made evacuation very easy for the small fishing community. What is actually most amazing is that people fought the volcano. Many houses were saved and most importantly, the opening of the harbor was saved, by pumping seawater onto the glowing red lava. By doing this they were able to cool down sections of lava and direct the lava rivers out into the ocean. The battle went on until the volcano quieted down five months later. Many people, having lost their homes, never returned to Vestmannaeyjar and the population shrank from 5.273 to just over 4.000.
If you want to go to Vestmannaeyjar, there are basically two choices. You can fly from Reykjavík (ca. 25min) with Ernir or go with the ferry. Once you are there you can go on all sorts of boat tours, the volcano museum, “The Pompeii of the north” or just explore the island on your own. If you don’t bring a car with you, you can rent a scooter and see the whole island.
Oh and if you are still not convinced, check out these great panoramas that Ivan Dasko posted to Iceland in Pictures facebook wall recently. The photographer in this panorama is standing on top of the new lava field with several houses beneath him. The other panorama looks across the town and the Herjólfsdalur valley. Herjólfsdalur is famous for attracting roughly 10.000 people for the annual Þjóðhátíð (E. National Holiday) every August. It’s not really a national holiday of any sorts, but it is Iceland’s largest outdoor party. Both of the panoramas feature the new volcano, Eldfell (E. Fire Mountain). It is the red sloping peak which has little vegetation on it.
You might also want to check out some previous posts about Vestmannaeyjar. Check out a video by National Geographic about children rescuing puffins, an awesome picture of the 1973 eruption, the Heimaklettur cliff or Iceland’s most popular youtube video, featuring a fishing ship battling a crazy storm on its way into the Vestmannaeyjar harbor.
Bláfjöll - The volcanoes closest to Reykjavík
These mountains are called Bláfjöll which means Blue Mountains. They are just outside Reykjavík and can be seen from most of the city. From there they often appear blue. When we are lucky they are full of snow and then we slip slide in our cars up this road to go skiing. The ski area is just behind the photographer.
The lava field and the small mountains on the left are quite young. Much of this was created in the several eruptions between 1211 and 1240. The most recent eruption was in 1389. It seems that volcanic activity in this area goes in cycles of 800-1000 years. That means that things might get interesting.
The Blafjöll area is very close to Reykjavík and eruptions could affect the city. My neighborhood is built on lava that flowed in the year 1000, so that could happen again. According to a volcanologist at the University of Iceland, the eruption would be very interesting, could cause some trouble but unlikely to do serious harm. The eruptions would be most powerful at their beginning, the ash perhaps disturbing air traffic close to Reykjavík for a couple of days. Lava would then start flowing downhill towards the city. The lava would be of a rather slow flowing type, so it would take a long time for it to reach the city limits and it is unlikely that it could cause damage to anything other than roads going to the city. The ski area might also be affected.
I’ve skied up there several times in under a bright aurora sky as in the photo. Can you imagine skiing under that same sky with an eruption and lava river flowing nearby. That’d be something. If you are interested you can check out the webcam of the ski slopes in Bláfjöll. They are hoping to open soon.
Photo by Lalli Sig.
(via rotkehl-chen)
I just dreamed that Eyjafjallajökull was erupting again.
Cracks of Doom - Eyjafjallajökull Volcano Eruptions by skarpi on Flickr.
Katla eruption 2011?
This is a fresh picture showing the the seismic activity around the Mýrdalsjökull glacier in Iceland in the past 48 hours. Katla, one of Iceland’s most powerful volcanoes sits directly underneath this glacier. You can always check out a fresh picture of Katla’s activity at the Icelandic Met Office. On any given day you will see earthquakes mapped onto the picture, but today it is quite lively. The color of the dots signify the recentness of the quake, red = 0-4 hrs, orange = 4-12, yellow = 12-24, light blue = 24-36 and dark blue = 36-48. Stars signify quakes over 3 on Richter. If you check out the accompanying table you can see the depth of the quakes. Quakes close to the surface and particularly series of earthquakes reaching closer and closer to the surface are indications of upcoming eruptions.
Katla is long due for an eruption. During the past 1000 years or so, Katla has erupted almost always twice a century. The last Katla eruption was in 1918. Icelanders therefor monitor Katla closely and stay as prepared as possible.
What happens if Katla erupts?
Katla is a powerful volcano situated under the Mýrdalsjökull glacier on the south coast of Iceland. The fact that it is under a glacier affects it a lot. When erupting lava comes in contact with ice an explosion occurs. This explosion is a bit like if you throw water onto an oil fire. Due to this explosive nature, what would otherwise be a calm lava flow (a photographers delight), becomes a great ash eruption. This is best illustrated by the two different eruptions we had last year, the beautiful Fimmvörðuháls eruption, next to the glacier and the much more violent eruption under the Eyjafjallajökull glacier. Ash is bothersome, but not really a danger. It disrupts flights around the world, is a major nuisance for farmers and makes things dirty. So we aren’t really afraid of ash, although many may dread it.
What we do have reason to worry about is the other side effect of subglacial eruptions. An eruption underneath a glacier will of course melt a lot of ice. This will build up a huge bubble of water somewhere underneath the glacier. Once this bubble is large enough it will break its way through the glacier and cause a massive flood. Floods caused by eruptions in Katla are estimated to have reached up to 300.000 cubic meters per second. To give you some kind of idea of how much water that is, it is nearly three times the Amazon river or greater than the three greatest rivers in the world combined.
Since such floods occur on average twice a century, we are somewhat prepared. Of course roads and bridges will be destroyed, but the flood paths are more or less uninhabited sands. The only place in real danger is the town of Vík. Floods may go directly into Vík, but will most likely miss it. However the flood can cause a massive Tsunami like wave towards shore once it hits the sea. This can be a major problem.
Today’s earthquake map is interesting, but no sure indication. There have been a lot of false alarms in the past.
The ones who had the hardest time during the eruption were the farmers in south east Iceland and their animals. The timing was particularly bad for them, as the lambs were either just born or being born. Not all the farmers were able to find or house all of their sheep. This is not a common sight, but it happened.
(Source: Boston.com, via pfta)
Imagine driving into a cloud of ash such as this one or living inside one.
Photo by Fredrik Holm
(via mwsk-deactivated20110917)
Eyjafjallajökull eruption 2010
Beautiful. Haven’t seen this picture before. It really shows the mix of fire, ash and ice. I can assure you that this is so much larger than what you might perceive from the picture.
(Source: telegraph.co.uk, via jonwithabullet)
Oh nice one. There are so many pictures of the Eyjafjallajökull eruption circulating tumblr, that it is quite rare to see a new one. This is a great picture.
(Source: violinkitten)
I have no idea who this is, standing by the Fimmvörðuháls eruption, but it does remind me of a great story from the Eyjafjallajökull eruption.
There are these two old brothers that live alone on a farm not far from the volcano. They had been forced to evacuate, unwillingly to Hvolsvöllur. However as the eruption stabilized they were allowed to return to the farm. A young TV reporter interviewed the brothers. She spoke with them as if they were a bit naive, something the brothers picked up on. When she asked “Isn’t it nice to be back and be able to stay with the animals?” one of them responded fussily ”With the animals? We sleep inside, they sleep outside.”
They also made it quite clear that they were not happy with having been forced to evacuate. “Our family has always lived here and there has never been a flood because of the volcano.” They were also not at all surprised that the volcano was erupting. They could see it from the weather in the weeks before that en eruption was underway.
(Source: goodreads.com, via skybrarian)
Earlier today I posted a picture of the final activity in the Grímsvötn eruption along with some info. However this video is much better. Check it out. The site is in Icelandic, but to see the video just click “Horfa á myndskeið með frétt” at the top of the article.
