Well it is nicknamed the land of fire and Ice. In fact, the national flag pays homage to this fact. It's a red cross inside a white cross with a blue background = Icy crust with a fiery core that's surrounded by ocean. Icelanders are suckers for imagery like that.
Now there's a nice webcomic idea… I can see it now. A lone guy who lives on a constantly gushing volcano that's actually sentient and that's is way of talking to him.
So you're telling me that when a volcano burns down my home, it's actually saying hello?
The two craters that I visited have now stopped. The fissures have been dead now for over 24 hours.
But that wasn't the end of the story. A new fissure, that's over mile wide has opened up under the smaller glacier and is causing a massive steam explosion under it. Here's a picture of the plume, breaking the skyline.
It's causing massive flooding in the the surrounding area, washing away roads and farmlands. the Department of Civil Protection is declaring emergency again and are reinforcing the levies that are protecting the villages in the area. The wind is blowing to the east so Scandinavia is expecting some ashfall for the next couple of days.
It's not affecting the capital since it's west from the eruption but the east side of the country is currently experiencing some heavy ashfal. The people living in those areas are saying that it looks as if it's night time outside (during the day of course) and poor visibility prevents people to see across the street.
You can watch the eruption online if you want. The amount of steam that is rising from that glacier is crazy and you can see black plumes behind the steam clouds. http://eldgos.mila.is/eyjafjallajokull-fra-valahnjuk/
Your volcano had better be done being a pain in the butt in 2 weeks, I have travel plans. >:[ The ash cloud has stopped all UK flights for the next day or more.
I still have a morbid curiosity when it comes to volcanoes. And that curiosity mainly deals with what it would look like if someone fell into lava. Obviously it'd be horrific. But I just wonder if they'd immediately melt or what.
Your volcano had better be done being a pain in the butt in 2 weeks, I have travel plans. >:[ The ash cloud has stopped all UK flights for the next day or more.
I'm reporting from the volcano with this important news update.
Btw. The little hills in that picture is a freaking mountain range.
I still have a morbid curiosity when it comes to volcanoes. And that curiosity mainly deals with what it would look like if someone fell into lava.
His insides would start to boil so fast that his melting skin would rupture in several places. Death would probably occur when his skull explodes to release the steam inside. About 70% of his body mass would evaporate and the rest would turn into a pile of ash that would mix into the lava. I'd expect it to be the perfect place to dump a body.
I can still see this as a funny webcomic, but this time it would be about a volcano's thoughts… and many of them would be on ways it could mess with mankind without outright killing it. :)
He's the head priest/shaman (titled "alsherjagothi" ) of the national Asatru Association (the old Nordic/Viking faith) and admitted about a month ago that he put a curse on Britain and Holland as a punishment for being too harsh on Iceland during the whole financial crisis thing. Sure enough, these two countries had their worst winters in a good long while and he popped up to brag about it. That silly man should have read the fine print.
I've been entertaining myself listening to foreign reporters trying to pronounce the name of the volcano. Here's an excellent compilation of some of their attempts.
I've been entertaining myself listening to foreign reporters trying to pronounce the name of the volcano. Here's an excellent compilation of some of their attempts
Sounds like they're trying to be French…
Icelandic is a weird language! I wonder if it has any relationship at all to English- apart from secondary stuff where Viking words found their way directly into English. -I wonder if it has any old relationship through the Angle and Saxon old Germanic origins of English? But it sounds very, very unlike German though… whereas you can here Germanic type words in Danish, Swedish, and Norwegian.
Seeing as they all shared the same religion in the old days (Scandinavia, Saxon Briton, Iceland, Germanic people in Europe), you'd think they might share more elements of language too?
Funny that you should mention this because I actually did study Germanic relations long time ago.
Germanic is derived from indo-european which divided into Germanic, Latin, Slavic, Celtic and many more. Germanic divided into West, East and North Germanic, East becoming English, North Becoming Old Norse (which eventually became Norse, Swedish, Danish, Faroese and Icelandic) and West becoming German (It's far more complicated than that but this is a simplified picture). Well over a millennium ago these three languages were very similar but as time passed, they started to change and/or become influenced by other languages. To put it simply. Celtic, Latin and French influenced English, German made an extreme pronunciation change, German and English influenced Danish and Danish and Finish influenced the other Scandinavian languages.
The Gray Goose Laws(Grágás), which were written in 1117 stated that all of Scandinavia spoke the same language which was Old Norse. During these 900 years that have since passed, the Scandinavian languages have changed to certain degrees while Icelandic has stayed virtually the same, due to its isolation to the rest of the world. Danish has changed the most and is now more similar to German then the other Scandinavian languages (they even count in the same way (one and twenty, two and twenty…)). Out of all the Germanic languages, English and Danish have changed the most and are often referred to as corrupted languages (since they integrated foreign words into their vocabulary). I've looked over Old English text and seen many similarities in to Icelandic. I've also read runestones that have been lying over the countryside in Norway for over thousand years and been able to fully understand its meaning. The natives there can't understand it without needing to learn Old Norse first.
And that's pretty much the history of Germanic languages 101.
*Realizing that I had just derailed my own topic, big time.*
Say! That volcano is bitchin!
Risking your neck / you're brave.
*Embarrassed* Ah shucks. It was nothing. I'm an experienced climber so I was never at risk. Sure, there was a statistical chance that the whole thing would have blown up while I was up there but all the geologists who were studying it at the time had ensured Civil Protection that it was safe to approach. They wouldn't have allowed the public to climb up there without that green light.
Found some interesting jokes about the current eruption. Mind you some of those jokes are awfully British (for example some of the jokes are referring to a frozen foods store that happens to be called Iceland)
It’s a bit early for Iceland volcano jokes. We should wait awhile for the dust to settle.
I see that America has declared war on Iceland. Apparently they are accusing them of harbouring a "weapon of ash eruption".
It was the last wish of the Icelandic economy that its ashes be spread over Europe.
Iceland goes bankrupt, then it manages to set itself on fire. This has insurance scam written all over it.
Iceland, we wanted your cash, not your ash.
Waiter, there's volcanic ash in my soup. I know, it's a no-fly zone.
Richard Curtis is working on a new rom-com about people stuck in an airport who fall in love. The working title is "Lava Actually".
I came out my house yesterday and was hit on the head by a bag of frozen sausages, a chocolate gateau and some fish fingers. I realised it must be the fallout from Iceland.
Volcano in Iceland. What next Earthquake in Asda?
Woke this morning to find every surface in the house covered in a layer of dust and a foul stench of sulphur in the air. No change, I've been married to that bone-idle slob for 20 years.
