Land of Fire
Land of Fire
An Icelandic volcano is in the news. After nearly 800 years of inactivity, the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted on the Reykjanes Peninsula on March 19, 2021.
Source: Semi-private 5-Hour Tour to Fagradalsfjall Volcano | Witn... (guidetoiceland.is)
This isn’t unusual. Iceland is quite volcanically active. On average, eruptions occur roughly every three years.
Notable eruptions have included Eldgjá, the world's largest basaltic eruption ever witnessed in the year 934. Laki, in 1783, was the world's second largest. Several eruptions have occurred beneath ice caps creating devastating glacial bursts.
In 2010, Eyjafjallajökull erupted causing massive meltwater floods forcing 600 people to flee their homes. You may remember when the ash cloud grounded air travel in northwest Europe for six days.
Part of the reason for all the volcanism is Iceland’s location. The island is bisected by the separating North American and Eurasian tectonic plates.
Source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Iceland_Mid-Atlantic_Ridge_map.svg
After a Volcano
According to Atlas Obscura, “In Iceland, you can’t just have a stunning lake. No, it also has to be inside of a volcanic caldera. And sometimes that’s not even enough, so the showiest country in the world provides something like Kerið Crater Lake, which is a nearly neon blue lake sitting in a volcano surrounded by rare red volcanic rock.”
Kerið is in southern Iceland. While most crater lakes are created from a caldera explosion, Kerið didn’t. It’s thought to have formed 3,000 years ago when the magma in the center simply depleted itself and the empty chamber beneath caved in.
The perfectly oval-shaped caldera is approximately 180 feet deep, 560 feet wide, and 890 feet across. Now filled with 45 feet of bright, sapphire-colored water and surrounded by a rainbow of colors, it looks out of this world.
The Shot
This quick shot of Kerið was taken in 2017. It rained almost constantly for my 10-day trip there in the month of February. Fortunately, it stopped raining long enough to wipe off my lens and take this picture. Soon afterwards, the rain restarted, and we had to put our cameras away.
Thanks for looking,
Chuck