Creeping Icelandic Lava Flow Threatens Popular Tourist Spot

Imagine relaxing successful Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, floating successful its steaming celeste waters with a mud disguise rejuvenating your face. Now ideate being told to evacuate the edifice and spa immediately. Why? Well, a question of lava is dilatory rolling towards the fashionable tourer destination.

On the evening of November 20, the Icelandic Meteorological Office registered a bid of earthquakes connected Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula announcing the eruption of a volcanic fissure—where lava spills retired from a crack, arsenic opposed to a vent—near Stóra Skógfell hill, astir 31 miles (50 kilometers) southwest of the superior Reykjavik. The glowing travel of lava rolled eastbound and westbound from the fissure, according to a NASA Earth Observatory statement. Thankfully, it avoided the adjacent municipality of Grindavík but overtook large roads, arsenic good arsenic Blue Lagoon’s parking batch and tiny work building.

An annotated presumption of the lava flow, showing the determination of Blue Lagoon. © NASA Earth Observatory images by Michala Garrison, utilizing Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey and VIIRS day-night set information from the Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership.

Parts of Grindavík were nevertheless evacuated, according to the Icelandic National Broadcasting Service, arsenic was the Blue Lagoon edifice and spa. Despite billows of mostly sulfur dioxide state rising from the lava, the lawsuit did not disrupt aerial question successful the area, adjacent though the tract is adjacent to Keflavík Airport. In fact, immoderate level passengers were thrilled to ticker the fiery spectacle from the clouds.

Once successful a beingness infinitesimal arsenic a rider level flys by an erupting Volcano successful #Iceland past nighttime 🌋
pic.twitter.com/g6XUxNt2aj

— Latest successful abstraction (@latestinspace) November 22, 2024

This latest eruption is the seventh successful a series that began last December, and the tenth successful the Reykjanes Peninsula’s comparatively caller volcanic signifier starting successful March 2021, according to the broadcast service. Before 2021, the Reykjanes volcanic strategy laic dormant for about 800 years. Now, the peninsula is experiencing a new geological era.

“This seems to beryllium successful a akin country arsenic it has been recently,” Thorgils Jónsson, a quality newsman for the broadcasting service, reported connected the time of the eruption successful notation to past volcanic enactment successful the area. He said that the fissure seemed to beryllium spreading north. “Now, arsenic I basal here, I tin spot the fissure creeping northwards.”

Lava dilatory creeps towards the constabulary main of Suðurnes, Iceland, during interview. pic.twitter.com/vsJVjbkTh1

— Fréttastofa RÚV (@RUVfrettir) November 22, 2024

Iceland is nary alien to volcanos. In fact, arsenic a volcanic land shaped by the magma rising retired of the mid-ocean ridge it sits on, the federation owes its precise beingness to them. On average, Iceland experiences a volcanic eruption each 5 years, though since 2021 the mean has been person to once a year.

A presumption of Iceland’s Blue Lagoon, taken successful 2011. © Peter Collins/Flickr

This hasn’t deterred galore visitors, however, with Iceland emerging arsenic a apical tourism destination and showcasing an awesome recovery aft the covid-19 pandemic. Even 1 of the country’s astir devastating eruptions—Eyjafjallajökull successful 2010—served arsenic the ground of a wildly palmy campaign launched by the Icelandic authorities to beforehand tourism. 

Blue Lagoon edifice volition beryllium closed done November 29, and portion the tourists whose spa retreat was chopped abbreviated indispensable surely beryllium bummed, they mightiness instrumentality successful the aboriginal to find that the tract of the volcanic eruption has go a greater tourer attraction than the geothermal spa itself.