A holiday is always a good day to market travel deals. But what about a holiday that comes not ‘but once a year’ like Christmas, but just once every four years?
09.02.2024 - 20:18 / nationalgeographic.com
Volcanic activity in Iceland has been rumbling on for months, centred around the Reykjanes Peninsula near Reykjavík, in the southwest of the country. After multiple earthquakes, the most recent series of eruptions kicked off at the end of 2023, when an explosion along a 2.5-mile fissure sent lava into the air a couple of miles northeast of the fishing village of Grindavík; another followed shortly afterwards.
Now, a new fissure near Sýlingarfell, northeast of Grindavík, has begun spewing lava and smoke.
In 2021, after 6,000 years lying dormant, the Fagradalsfjall volcanic system on the Reykjanes Peninsula sprang back into life with the appearance of a 600ft-long fissure. Until that moment, the region hadn’t seen an eruption for over 800 years. Three small blasts followed (in 2021, 2022 and the summer of 2023), each producing fountains of fire.
A nine-mile dike (an underground pathway that allows magma to travel towards the surface) on the Reykjanes Peninsula was discovered to be the underlying cause, and since then there have been further eruptions that have reached the town of Grindavík. If additional volcanic activity occurs, it’s likely to take place in this region.
So far, the greatest disruption has been to the residents of Grindavík, who were evacuated prior to the December eruption. Following recent blasts, some homes here have been destroyed by lava. The nearby Blue Lagoon, the country’s most popular attraction, has briefly closed, on and off, as a precautionary response to the eruptions, but has not been otherwise impacted. Reykjavík and the international airport, meanwhile, were unaffected.
Some passengers on flights that have flown over eruption sites have been treated to spectacular scenes from their window seats.
‘Volcano tourists’ have since converged on the area, hoping for a glimpse of the lava. However, Icelandic police warned people to “think four times” before attempting to get close to the sites, after an exhausted hiker had to be rescued by helicopter.
As volcanoes can be unpredictable, it’s hard to say with 100% certainty. “Most volcanologists seem to agree that this period of volcanic activity is going to go on for many years, if not decades,” says Dr Robin Andrews, a volcanologist. But, “it’s difficult to study the systems where there’s no central volcano.”
Experts in the fields of volcanology and aviation agree that a repeat of the events that followed the Eyjafjallajökull eruption likely won’t happen again. Back then, a six-day shutdown of European airspace, due to the presence of ash in quantities sufficient to cause engine failure in planes, caused the cancellation of some 100,000 flights.
The fact that the volcanoes involved in the most recent eruptions don't open onto
A holiday is always a good day to market travel deals. But what about a holiday that comes not ‘but once a year’ like Christmas, but just once every four years?
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