Friday, September 12, 2014 — Bárðarbunga Walk

Yes, some peo­ple actu­al­ly do walk away from an explo­sion with­out look­ing back.…

14-09-12 BLOG Bárðarbunga walkAn Ice­landic vul­ca­nol­o­gist is obvi­ous­ly fed up with Bárðar­bun­ga’s tem­per tantrums. Those lava plumes are high­er than most city skyscrapers.

A land­scape I walked on a few years ago no longer exists. Yes­ter­day, sul­phur diox­ide lev­els peaked at 2600μg/m3 (sig­nif­i­cant­ly dan­ger­ous) at Reyðar­fjörður, a fish­ing town on the east coast. When the lava flow reach­es a small moun­tain called Vaðal­da, its path will nar­row, with unpre­dictable results. The Skí­nan­di water­fall, a land­mark, appears to be doomed. The worst dan­ger remains pos­si­ble: a jökulh­laup, or mas­sive out­burst of glacial melt, accom­pa­nied by tox­ic ash clouds

Pho­tos by Axel Sig­urðs­son / Morgunblaðið.

14-09-12 BLOG Bárðarbunga fly14-09-12 BLOG Bárðarbunga sattelite

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