Iceland review - 2014, Qupperneq 6

4 ICELAND REVIEW
Our throats were sore, our eyes burning.
The crater Baugur threw 1,200°C (2,200°F)
glowing lava 100 meters (330 feet) into the air and
spewed up to 1,000 kg (2,200 lbs) of sulfur dioxide
gas into the atmosphere every second.
Sixty tons per minute, 3,600 tons per hour—more
than 86,000 tons on a good day.
Standing next to the eruption, one is spellbound
not only by the raw beauty but also by the force of
nature.
The eruption sounds like a gigantic troll screaming,
not from the throat but all the way from the depths of
its fat belly.
The eruption site in Holuhraun is as far as one can
go from civilization in Iceland, a good 12-hour drive
from the capital. It’s not a catastrophic eruption, but
one of the bigger ones in recent decades. By late
September, as the Holuhraun eruption had carried
on for 23 days, it had become more extensive than
the eruption in Eyjafjallajökull in 2010. During the 23
days that the Eyjafjallajökull eruption lasted, the ejecta
volume, mostly ash, measured 180 million cubic
meters. In the same amount of time, the ejecta volume
of the Holuhraun eruption, mostly consisting of lava,
has reached 250 million cubic meters.
Soon, the volume of lava could fill up all houses in
Iceland twice. The combined space of all buildings in
the country is approximately 148 million cubic meters.
Since 1914, this eruption is number 49, which
means that Iceland has had an eruption every other
year on average for the last 100 years.
Some have been fairly large, like Katla in 1918,
Hekla in 1947, Surtsey in 1963, Vestmannaeyjar in
1973 and Eyjafjallajökull in 2010.
But none of them have been BIG.
Since Iceland was settled by Hallveig Fróðadóttir
and Ingólfur Arnarson in 874 A.D., Iceland has had six
massive eruptions; seven, if we count Vatnaöldur by
Bárðarbunga in 870, three years before settlement.
These big eruptions changed not only the face of
Iceland but also caused dramatic changes to the
climate throughout the world, like the Laki eruption in
1783. Scientists estimate that up to six million people
worldwide died of starvation as a consequence of the
eruption.
The six big ones are Katla/Eldgjá in 934, Hekla in
1104, Veiðivötn in 1480 (just south of Bárðarbunga),
Katla in 1755, Laki in 1783 and Askja in 1875.
Iceland has not had an eruption of the same scale
in 139 years.
If the mighty volcano Bárðarbunga, just south of
Holuhraun, wakes up with a vengeance, then maybe
Iceland would be made uninhabitable and we’d have
to rewrite the country’s future history.

Páll Stefánsson
ps@icelandreview.com
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PHOTO By JóHAnnES BEnEDIKTSSOn.
Up close and personal with crater Suðri.