After writing the Woolly Mammoth Guide to Icelandic Volcanism I vowed to not write about Iceland for a while. That comment bit me in the posterior rather quickly. Since the cessation of the Holuhraun eruption the central volcano Bárðarbunga has been highly seismically active. Many people have fervently believed that this has been due to…
It is a bit surprising that I have never gotten around to writing a complete guide of Icelandic volcanoes in view of how much I have written about them. Obviously this can’t be a complete write up for all of the volcanoes; instead it will be a list of the volcanoes with a short part…
Statistics and volcanism does not exactly go hand in hand, especially since it tends to end up with idiots claiming that volcanoes are “overdue”. A volcano is never overdue, they may shift patterns of their eruptions, go into extended periods of dormancy, or pretty much do anything that they jolly well pleases. It is…
I used the term “fracking” to provoke reactions out of anyone who read this article. What I am really talking about is drilling into a volcanic system to inject water so that you get steam to drive a power plant. Or in other terms, your garden variety geothermal plant, such as those Iceland is filled…
Recently, a minor quake occurred out in the Veiðivötn fissure swarm. A discussion came about from that and mention was made of something that many of us refer to as “The Dead Zone.” Why that name? Well, as many have noted, the area is relatively devoid of quakes when compared to the rest of Iceland. …
This is a question that gets asked regularly and in particular when there is a lot of earthquake activity going on. Surely this must “mean something”! Well, yes, but not necessarily something volcanic. In fact, most of it is not volcanic at all but tectonic as the North American and Eurasian Plates slowly separate, driven…