31–40 of 45 posts
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The American equivalent is probably the national flood insurance program.
The annoying thing about that is that it lets people repeatedly keep building in exactly the same spot. Not without an inconvenience, but it's almost like "every time it floods enough you get a home upgrade".
About an hour drive from Reykjavík, Iceland.
That's not very helpful for people not from Iceland as far as indicating distance. An hour drive doing 60mph is totally different from windy roads along a coast line or through valleys. Google Maps isn't too useful: "Sorry, we could not calculate driving directions from "Reykjavík, Iceland" to "Grindavik, Iceland"
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Also from the blog: > Benedikt Halldórsson of the Met Office says houses are not designed to withstand lava flow. > »... You can expect the walls to give way from the load, and the heat in the lava is such that it burns everything in its path.« Apart from the heat, since it's molten rock it also has considerable mass, and the lava flow continues pushing from behind.
One weird realization I had is that lava is over three times as dense as water, so if you tired to “swim” in it, you’d basically just sit on top.
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Also from the blog: > Benedikt Halldórsson of the Met Office says houses are not designed to withstand lava flow. > »... You can expect the walls to give way from the load, and the heat in the lava is such that it burns everything in its path.« Apart from the heat, since it's molten rock it also has considerable mass, and the lava flow continues pushing from behind.
One weird realization I had is that lava is over three times as dense as water, so if you tired to “swim” in it, you’d basically just sit on top.
I had an opportunity to interact with lava during a Hawaii eruption, and people could run/walk across red hot and flowing lava, but it would start melting the bottom of your shoes. This lava was definitely on the colder end of the spectrum, with a consistency like bread dough.
On the the other end of the specturm, there are very hot low viscosity lavas similar in consistency to soup. If you tried to step on that, it would be like falling into a pool.
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The annoying thing about that is that it lets people repeatedly keep building in exactly the same spot. Not without an inconvenience, but it's almost like "every time it floods enough you get a home upgrade".
That insurance not cheap.
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There is a berm that got built around the north of the town but unfortunately the fissures go under the town. The initial eruption came across the barrier so a lot of the lava has been diverted. The second eruption was inside the barrier so not a lot can be done. If you scroll down the linked page there’s a map of the flow and barriers. There’s footage of them saving the machinery being used to build the barriers.
Look at this webcam feed overlooking Grindavík https://www.youtube.com/live/hvcP4kVVOnk Go to about 11:58 on the timestamp in the bottom right corner, you will see the lava flowing along the berm (which is doing a good job of protecting a large building) while workers with bulldozers and diggers close the gap in the berm that the road goes through. The fissure close to the town opens up at about 12:20. The lava flowi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
One weird realization I had is that lava is over three times as dense as water, so if you tired to “swim” in it, you’d basically just sit on top.
it is less about density and more about viscosity, which depends on the type and temperature. I had an opportunity to interact with lava during a Hawaii eruption, and people could run/walk across red hot and flowing lava, but it would start melting the bottom of your shoes. This lava was definitely on the colder end of the spectrum, with a consistency like bread dough. On the the other end of the specturm, there are…
Iceland is such a beautiful place.. although I was angry and sad for most part of the trip seeing how tourism changed Iceland over the last 20 years. As recently as 2014 we had to ask the locals in mostly sign language and paper maps how to navigate the Westfjords; there's 5G now in even the last corner of the island.. guess I'll need to resort to Svalbard and Greenland to go truly off-grid in the future :-)