Iceland's Volcano In Photos/video/words

Subject: Iceland's Volcano In Photos/video/words Sun Apr 25, 2010 9:01 pm

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/earthpicturegalleries/7606679/Iceland-volcano-the-latest-spectacular-pictures-of-the-volcanic-eruption.html

Video

Iceland volcano: eruption 'could just be rehearsal' for worse ash chaos if Katla blows

On the first official day of Icelandic summer, a bitter sub-zero wind whipped newly-fallen snow across the majestic mountain glacier that enveloped the crater of the Katla volcano.
The solitude and serenity was disturbed only by the rumbles from its cloud-shrouded and now notorious neighbour Eyjafjallajökull, whose violent eruptions paralysed international air travel for a remarkable week.

The choking plumes of ash that Eyjafjallajökull is spewing out may have slowly diminished, but the volcano is still managing to mount some spectacular displays against dramatic backdrops of lightning showers and the Northern Lights.
And as recriminations about the handling of the great ash debacle deepen in tandem with the gradual recovery from its impact, Katla is a brooding reminder that the Land of Fire and Ice could soon deliver an even more explosive shock to the world.
A Sunday Telegraph reporter and photographer were the first journalists to set foot on its glacier since Eyjafjallajökull erupted, edging up to the crater rim at 4,000 ft in a Land Rover modified in Iceland to "super Jeep" standards for extreme conditions.
The usually pristine white wilderness was dotted with dirty smudges of crusty ash deposited in recent days. And several miles below the 2,000 ft thick ice field, the magna chambers of a volcano that has some 10 times the power of Eyjafjallajökull are long "overdue" an eruption after an unprecedented 92 years of inactivity.
Fuelling those concerns concerns, Katla, named after a vindictive troll from Viking folklore, has also exploded in the wake of previous eruptions at Eyjafjallajökull. When it last unleashed its fury and ferocity in 1918, glacial floods swept down from the mountain and ash clouds turned day to pitch dark - but the commercial aviation business had of course not been born then.
Sitting atop the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the fault line where two tectonic plates and are violently tearing themselves apart, Iceland is a smouldering and unpredictable physical presence in the chilly North Atlantic just 500 miles off the Scottish coast.
And in a frank interview with The Sunday Telegraph, the country's president, Olafur Grimsson, a plain-speaking left-wing academic, cited new research by Icelandic volcanologists to warn the country's neighbours to expect more intensified volcanic activity for decades to come.
"The fundamental lesson is that volcanic eruptions will continue to happen in Iceland so we'll all have to learn to live with them and handle them better," he said. "We should treat the events of the last few days as a dress rehearsal for what needs to be done if and when Katla erupts.

The rest of the story is at the link.

The pictures and video are amazing to see.
Makes me feel small looking at it.

Guest

Seeing as it's Iceland, I have absolutely no problem in saying..

KICK ITS @$$ THOR!!

Subject: Re: Iceland's Volcano In Photos/video/words Sun Apr 25, 2010 10:48 pm

If scantaly clad women get the blame for earthquakes, it's only fair to blame
volcano eruptions on you know who.

* But for real... I hate to think of any volcanos erupting. It'sa scary thing.

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