Grindavik [video]
youtube.com
youtube.com
If you scrub back to 22:17:15 (on the embedded video clocks), you can see the initial eruption caught.
At a time like 00:12:26, you can see the camera with the best view rattle as if by a quake – which then appears in the quake log, lower-right.
I wish Youtube live had chat replay to see people's reaction, it doesn't seem to work when the stream is still live.
I don’t live there any more but my family does. I visited last November during the major seismic activity and the town was evacuated. My family found a safe harbor at our extended family in a nearby town (https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=38225019).
One local “correction” from most media (including the Icelandic media). The mountain (or hill rather) closest to the eruption is actually called Svartsengi by the locals, but Sýlingafell on maps. Svartsengi is actually the field down the hill behind the camera. They used to hold boxing matches and festivals there in the 50s and 70s respectively. Svartsengi is also the name of the nearby power plant (even though it is actually closer to Baðsvellir). If we want to be explicit we use a definite article Svartsengið to mean the field Svartsengisfell to mean the hill and Hitaveitan to mean the power plant. Sýlingafell is never used.
1: https://www.ruv.is/frettir/innlent/2023-12-18-gossprungan-or...
2: https://dankxip1iu8u9.cloudfront.net/eyJidWNrZXQiOiAicnV2LXB...
Words that are worthy of reading both for their extremely vivid and personal description of something that, from our vantage point, happened a very long time ago, and for their eloquence.
https://www.ruv.is/english/2023-12-18-eruption-on-reykjanes-...
At the moment it doesn't look like flight traffic will be affected.
Yes, in fact the opposite. Air traffic controllers in Iceland were planning a strike, and they've now postponed it because of the eruption, they claim.
Source: https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2023/12/18/aflysa_verkfal...
Either way, most important thing is that there are no cassualties and property damage is minimal.
A (not very good) photo I took: https://imgur.com/a/Yc2apSu
https://www.visir.is/k/3260696d-37f9-4160-9b6a-3862fea52cb8-...
It almost looks like a still image.
In short, people kind of knew what was going on. They may not have known the exact mechanism, but they did know that this was how land formed, and was a normal part of nature, just like the northern lights, earthquakes and rain.
This little story is so often cited in Iceland you kind of just learn it in your head and only know it is in some of the sagas.
[0] http://www.vsnrweb-publications.org.uk/Text%20Series/IslKr.p...
The reason is that Iceland's vulcanism is driven by a hot spot that sits right on top of the middle oceanic ridge (where tectonic plates emerge from the mantle, as opposed to coastal subduction zones where they travel back into the mantle).
The ridge is normally on the seafloor and this is one of the very few places where it runs on land. This makes Iceland's volcanism so special and specifically interesting for science.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fissure_vent
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2022_eruption_of_Mauna_Loa
https://www-mbl-is.translate.goog/frettir/erlent/2023/12/19/...
It’s difficult to get any sense of scale, but there’s some good panning shots where you see how close the power station is.
they have the people under control... there is no way they have any semblance of controls over the fissure or the magma/lava.
But ya, mostly they have the people evacuated and taken care of.
having said that, the Icelandic Dyke seems to have very "runny" magma. this might help with deflection.
Though heads up going there to see the northern lights is all about luck unless you stay for weeks to months. Be cool see the lights and this active volcano in the opposite direction of each other :)
I read that based on the strength of the initial eruption it could continue for several months. So I’d say let’s wait and see.
IIRC, I remember news some weeks back that a fissure was opening in the town roads and steam was billowing up from it. Did the volcano literally sprout from the town center?
* Evacuated, and some structural damage from pre-eruption earthquakes and earth movements like the fissure you mention
Edit: For context: https://www.mbl.is/frettir/innlent/2023/12/18/i_vidbragdssto...
They're closing the barricade where the road intersects it. The northern intersection seems to be a priority rather than the southern one, like I thought first.
On the current footage, I have no idea of the scale though - it looks huge but at the same time the terrain around looks like a miniature.