Tag: Geldingadalur
Iceland from the West to the South: A Meh Guide With Some Eye-Popping Mistakes
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So of course with all of the Iceland Volcano excitement, I had to run out and buy a bunch of books on Icelandic geology. It’s actually not super easy to find affordable ones in English. So I was very pleased to find one published by Springer for a good price: Iceland from the West to the South by Wolfgang Fraedrich. Springer is all about science written by scientists. I was stoked.
I have now read it, and…I’m considerably less stoked.
Do You Want to Die by Volcano? Because This Is How You Die by Volcano
There is no such thing as a safe eruption. I just want to stress this up front. If a volcano is actively erupting, no matter how gently, it could easily kill you. The minimum safe distance is far away. Add another far to that away if you’re dealing with an explosive volcano, just to be sure. And stay out of valleys that are part of its drainage system!
The majority of the fatalities at Mount Loowit (St. Helens) during the May 18th, 1980 eruption took place outside of the Red Zone, in areas that would have been safe if she hadn’t blown out laterally.
Kilauea’s eruptions may seem more like photo ops than death dealers, but it’s actually the deadliest volcano in the United States.