Volcano Erupts In Iceland

Reports are coming in that a volcano in Iceland called Grimsvotn has erupted, sending plumes of smoke 15km into the air. It was accompanied by a series of earthquakes, but all of them have been minor so far, and scientists don't believe the eruption will cause problems for air travel like 2010's Eyjafjallajokull event. Local coverage in Icelandic is available, as well as early pictures of the eruption.

Comments

Oh man...

[Mashiki]

We're all doomed! Repent! Then end is here! ... I still have time for the doomsday stuff right?

Re:Oh man...

[Black Parrot]

You know at least half the people over there had this thought cross their minds, "Shit, I hedged my bets wrong"

Hedging the bet was easy. I just hung around on the west side of a time zone division, watching to see whether anything happened on the east side. If people had started going up, I would have had an hour to get to church and get saved.

Re:Oh man...

[Sir_Lewk]

No, I really doubt that. 1) Icelanders are not idiots. 2) It's fucking Iceland. This is hardly the first time they've seen some volcanic activity.

Had this been in biblebelt kansas, maybe you'd be right.

Random chance

[Anonymous Coward]

Even though this is purely coincidentally, all the believers of the May 21 "rapture" are going to cite this as evidence.

Re:Random chance

[jd]

You've got to remember that they're descended from the Vikings. If you look at the syllables in Vatnajokull, they're all something you could get out between sword swings. Evolution would have taken its course and all longer syllables would have died out.

Re:Random chance

[Rei]

They'd hate it there. Remember, we're talking about a country that voted in same-sex marriage 49 to *zero*, and has a lesbian prime minister.

Re:Random chance

[geekoid]

Is she hot?

Rapture

[tom17]

Fail.

Re:Rapture

[Frosty Piss]

Fail.

With the world economy the way it is right now, it's hard to do a quality Rapture on the limited budget that God can afford, what with his credit rating in the toilet, and all.

Stop volcanic proliferation!

[catmistake]

Every time there's a volcanic eruption we are reminded by anti-volcanics just how dangerous volcanos are, that even with really thick gloves lava is simply too hot to handle, and no amount of safety regulations will mitigate the mortal danger they pose. When will society wise up and realize volcanos are far too unpredictable? Even if there weren't eruptions, no amount of science or development is going to make them economically viable.

Re:Stop volcanic proliferation!

[jamesh]

This is exactly the sort of anti-volcanic rhetoric I'd expect from the unwashed masses. This volcano was built using plans from three generations ago. Todays volcano's are far safer and far less likely to erupt in such an unpredictable fashion. Your are glossing over the fact that this volcano has just endured a rapture and is only blowing a small quantity of ash. The design specifically stated that the volcano would require some additional re-enforcements before the rapture came but these were never done owing to budget constraints, so it's hardly fair to judge all volcano's on the poor maintenance of this one case.

Re:Down with Iceland

[Idarubicin]

How can it really get any better?

The entire country pretty much runs on geothermal and hydroelectric power.

There are bathable hot springs.

The word geyser comes from Icelandic.

The whole country is snuggled up against the Arctic circle, but the jet stream keeps it from getting unpleasantly cold. In summer it can get quite toasty, actually. (And from June through August the sun dips below the horizon, but it never gets really dark.) In winter, you can see northern lights in the afternoon.

They have Europe's largest waterfall.

And millions of puffins.

And, for better or worse, Björk.

Re:Interesting

[Idarubicin]

Grímsvötn has been erupting semi-regularly for decades; in the last twenty years there have been eruptions in 1996, 1998, 2004, and now 2011. While long-term volcano prediction is more of an art than a science, there's no particular reason to believe that this eruption is related to either the Eyjafjallajökull eruption or to the still-apparently-quiescent (keep your fingers crossed) Katla. Grímsvötn is actually quite a distance from Katla: roughly 150 km. Eyjafjallajökull is much closer to Katla (just 30 km) and the initial smaller eruption last year (on Fimmvörðuháls) was nearer still.