If you click on the screenshot below, you can go to a livestream on the website of an Icelandic site. It’s southwestern Iceland’s first volcanic eruption in around 800 years, the first eruption of this one in 6,000 years, and the livestream is pretty impressive.
Björk is excited:
h/t: Matthew
I want to go there.
We’re there … yet …
Hardly.
It’s the first eruption on the Reykjanes peninsula in 800-odd years. Those of us whose work hitch was extended by 10 days back in 2010 due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull remember it well. (The ash particles did nasty things to the fine clearances in aircraft engines, and to the balance of turbines. No engine, no fly.)
I have been playing some German friends along that this is actually a marketing ploy by an Icelandic winery, who grow grapes under glass, geothermally heated, and are planning a marketing campaign to match “Le Beaujolais Nouveaux”. I think they suspect me of winding them up.
Ah, I came to the comment section to point this out. There were three eruptions just in the last decade. The island is full of active volcanoes.
There is an extensive greenhouse industry one place in Iceland I’ve seen, but possibly not grapes there.
That reminds me a bit of the old BBC TV leg-pulling stunt that many fell for a very long time ago. Not much Italian food in Britain at that time. The famous travel/nature guy (name escapes me–Dimbleby I think now) had the peasants in Italy harvesting the spaghetti noodles from the trees which produced that pasta.
Yes 1783 at Laki for example
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki
Fair dale fell would be how I’d render the name.
Recall the Scots ‘reek’ for smoke, & you will ken the placename element ‘reyk’ which indicates steaming/smoking vents.
In Afrikaans “rook” for smoke 🙂
And ken means roughly the same, i.e. to know. Although I guess in the sense used above the better, more correct (Afrikaans) word would rather be “herken” = to recognise.
Languages have interesting commonalities.
Hearken!
Ummm, Laki is fairly central in Iceland – just SW of the main ice cap, NE of the one which has Eyjafjallajökull on it’s W margin. About 200km E of the Reykjanes peninsula. Get the position of Etna equally off, and you’d be on Malta or half-way to Vesuvius.
Or landing at Inverness airport on the outskirts of Edinburgh – which I’m sure has happened.
What’s an Americanism for “being a long way off”? “Close enough for Texas Government Work”? “Duelling Banjos in Washington”?
Takes a moment for the live stream to come up (at least, from my computer). Yup, those little black-brown-white spots moving on the lower right and up the slope from there must be people, doing what people do – getting up close and personal with several thousand decrees of steaming red magma. I’m in Hawaii – one good thing about the pandemic is we haven’t had to rescue any tourists with the same death wish (“adventurous” spirit).
If you zoom in you can see lots of observers on the right. Looks like they need to start moving back.
The main location of the mid-Atlantic Ridge runs roughly north-south, but about 100 km east of there. Lots of dangerous volcanoes there, Katla, Hekla, Grimsvotn, …, frequent eruptions, especially near and under the largest of the icecaps, Vatnajokull. I insisted on going to Iceland in 2011, after we got stuck in Dublin by Eyejafjalla for a week in 2010–could be worse places to get stuck for sure! We’ve now been about 10 times.
I did not know that there had been no eruptions 100 km west on Reykjanes Peninsula for 900 years. It’s sort of an offshoot there of the mid-A.Ridge, I think. And further north, the famous Snaefjelljokull, setting of Jules Vernes’ “Journey to the Center of the Earth”, is in the same system. No active vulcanism there for quite awhile. We lived in a cottage sort of at the foot of that mountain for 6 weeks in about 2014.
That peninsula is where the main (Keflavik) airport is. The half hour drive into Reykjavik already has dramatic scenery, one very picturesque little volcano, perfect shape that looks like only a half-hour walk over the bare ground from the highway, but likely much farther.
But that volcano is likely very visible for air passengers once the plane is out of the clouds to land (and before, after take-off). Have they cancelled flights?
I doubt it will mess air traffic like Eyejafjalla did, and I don’t know how near that airport it is. But there could be some worry about poisonous gasses being blown in the area. Right in and next to Reykjavik is about ¾ of all the people in Iceland.
Don’t trust my spelling above.
Keflavik Airport is a bit north of this eruption and apparently flights have been cancelled. But this is not producing the giant ash clouds that Eyjafyallajokull did. My wife and I visited Iceland in the fall of 2013 and I would love to go back. It has one truly beautiful landscape after another as you drive around. I have wanted to see a good eruption with flowing lava ever since I studied geology in college, but no luck, so far.
Thanks for the info.
I suspect that autumn time of yours could be very good, if the weather didn’t disappoint. Weather is even more unpredictable in maritime climates. Maybe this fall we’ll manage it. The authorities as usual are right on top of everything, and have already made clear and specific what vaccine info papers are needed for a smooth arrival, no quarantine.
We’ve often gone early spring because of a Norway ski race then, a few times in midsummer, once midwinter because of a Norway funeral to attend.
After August, maybe midAugust even, the tourist prices for car rental and accommodation drop somewhat. Also Northern lights are most often around equinox time, although there’s a lot more dark for that in winter.
We were there for most of October and left in early November just before the big musical fest in Reykjavik. We did get some snow and there were some very cold/windy days, but we were lucky with the weather. We found a guesthouse in Reykjavik that had a special deal. We paid for two nights and got the third night free. Spent a few nights out in the hinterlands with beautiful clear skies and no moon, but the only time we saw the aurora was when we were in the city.
It’s interesting how video and photography seem unable to accurately render the colors of lava. Having been lucky enough to see it in real life on multiple occasions, it’s striking how completely different it appears to the naked eye. In place of the orange and yellows it registers as a neon pink orange that is simply hypnotic.
Go look at the live stream now that it is dark. Even more hypnotic despite the apparent inability of the camera to capture it.
Sorry, I’m ‘anal’ about Iceland, and overdoing this. I looked up the places on their terrific road map book. Danger if any:
It seems that the famous Blue Lagoon is little over 5 km away, say 4 miles, I’ll bet that road is blocked.
Grindavik, 3,000 people, about 10K.
The big airport, and town of Keflavik, maybe 15,000, a little over 15 km to the northwest.
The much bigger population Reykjavik area maybe 250,000 only a bit over 20 km to the northeast.
(Much less than 100,000 in the rest of Iceland, and not many tourists right now.
I hope they don’t get any poisonous gasses blowing out of that thing.
Icelandic TV:
“Magnús Tumi Guðmundsson, the noted geophysics professor, ….says the emission of poisonous gas from the eruption seems to be low so far and that if this does not change, there will be no danger posed to anybody. “
What a wild land – I’d love to visit (pretty cheap from NYC) when our passports are worth more than beer coasters again – and I’d totally ask Bjork out on a date. 😉
D.A.
NYC