Volcanic Poker

I’ve never played poker but I already know that I’d be terrible at it. I’m good at reading people but terrible at keeping my mouth shut when I am excited. I’m the type of guy to scream “I’ve got a royal flush!” if I were to get one. A royal flush, consisting of a King,…

What if Katla erupted?

First of all, I should clearly state that there are no current signs that an eruption at Katla is about to happen in the near future. Instead, the reason is that I was asked by one of our readers, Patricio Oliver, what would happen if the volcano erupted, especially for the inhabited areas. This is…

Volcanoes of the North: the fire in the ice

A freezer provides storage. And a deep freezer gives deep storage. You can’t go deeper than an original ice-age glacier. In Greenland, those glaciers are still there, being so tall that the top has remained in deep freeze even though the ice age is a distant memory. In this cryogenic environment, that frozen memory is…

Iceland’s eruptions since 1900

In 1900, Iceland was a very different country. It wasn’t a country, for one thing. Although Iceland had been granted self-rule, it was still a part of Denmark and the local leaders were largely Danish-educated. There was still a Danish governor. The position (not the governor) was terminated in 1904. On Dec 1, 1918 the…

Volcano ecology

Space is a precious resource. We hoard it and guard it. Together with air, water, warmth and tomato ketchup, it is one of the essential ingredients for life. We are happy to share empathy, food, and money, but letting someone else invade our personal space is a big step well beyond that. Social distancing is…

Hekla of history: the 1104 eruption

Painting by Borge Ruud, undated but probably 1947 Of all the volcanoes of Iceland, the most famous is Hekla. It is one of five recognized stratovolcanoes in Iceland, and of those it is by far the most active. Over the past millennium, there have been around 20 eruptions of Hekla, accounting for 13% of all…

Was Puyehue Cordón-Caulle really a VEI-5?

That the question even exist is a bit of an oddity in modern volcanology, after all we have known amply how to take ejecta-depth measurements to create Isopac-maps since 1956, more about that below. The reason that this question has prevailed is that there are anomalies in the numbers proven for the eruption, compared to…

The Forgotten Volcano

A few days ago, I was sipping on a rum and coke as I was flying over Kilimanjaro and the great continental divide ripping East Africa away from the embrace of the rest of Africa. As I did that, I got to ponder the other major tectonic powerhouse, Iceland. People tend to forget or underestimate…

Sahara, Scotland

The conifers stand tall, straight. They look old but there are patches where trees have been cut, and there is replanting elsewhere, evidence of tree harvesting. The evergreen forest is popular with tourists. This is in spite of the latitude: there are more northerly places in Scotland, but not many. The climate is not as…

Hekla – Small things and stars in the night

I was asked to write a small weekend piece while we wait for Albert to finish the second part about Grimsvötn. My original idea was to write about people eating volcanoes, but thankfully Iceland saved us from that. As many of you have noticed Grimsvötn has thrown some big ones since my part of the…