Volcano eruption near Iceland airport sparks travel fears, risky photo shoots

washingtonpost.com ^ | August 4, 2022 | Adela Suliman and Morgan Coates

[BenLurkin]

A massive volcano erupting close to a global travel hub, Iceland’s Keflavik Airport, led to close monitoring by officials and sparked fascination from people who ventured near the bright orange lava flows despite warnings.

The Fagradalsfjall volcano in southwest Iceland erupted Wednesday at 1:18 p.m. local time, according to the Icelandic Meteorological Office, which urged people to stay away from the sparsely populated area on the Reykjanes peninsula — though some still went up close to snap photographs with their children and fly drones.

The eruption, classified as a volcanic fissure, is occurring about 10 miles from Keflavik International Airport and about 20 miles from the country’s capital, Reykjavik. As of Thursday morning, the airport — which has flights from Seattle, London and Frankfurt — remained open and operational.

[Larry Lucido]

Hey, the volcano selfie. The ultimate selfie.

[z3n]

"The Fagradalsfjall volcano in southwest Iceland..."

~~~

[Beowulf9]

Iceland is lovely but her volcano’s are hard to pronounce.

[Larry Lucido]

[heavy metal]

that blows...

[dfwgator]

Will Greta yell “How Dare You!” at the volcano?

[ComputerGuy]

Seattle to Keflavik. That’s got to be one cold flight.

[NWFree]

I wonder if it’s still the happiest place to live or whatever it was ….

[dainbramaged]

A nearby volcanic eruption can flat out ruin your day.
David Alexander Johnston (December 18, 1949 – May 18, 1980) was an American United States Geological Survey (USGS) volcanologist who was killed by the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens in the U.S. state of Washington. A principal scientist on the USGS monitoring team, Johnston was killed in the eruption while manning an observation post six miles away on the morning of May 18, 1980. He was the first to report the eruption, transmitting "Vancouver! Vancouver! This is it!" before he was swept away by a lateral blast. Despite a thorough search Johnston's body was never found, but state highway workers discovered remnants of his USGS trailer in 1993.

[EVO X]

A massive volcano erupting close to a global travel hub,

The underground structure could be massive, but last years eruption and the current eruption are considered puny. They have the eruption live on YouTube..

[Larry Lucido]

Well, yeah. Could have used wind or solar.

[Ruy Dias de Bivar]

Kind of like the selfie of the man on top of the Twin Towers with the aircraft approaching on 9-11.

It was proved to be fake but wow! If it had been real....

[TribalPrincess2U]

That was my first thought! What a wad!
Then again wads are known to ‘self-destruct’.

[maddog55]

I won’t go some place I can’t pronounce.

[Paal Gulli]

Volcanoes occur most commonly at the edges of tectonic plates. That’s why there’s a “Ring of Fire,” a conglomeration of edges of tectonic plates around the Pacific rim. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ring_of_Fire

Iceland has the distinction of not only sitting astride a collision between the North American and Eurasian plates, the plate edges are visible at the surface. Geographically, the west side of the island is literally in North American and the east side is in Eurasia.

[Texan4Life]

Zoomed 4K action at night

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sqtwZjx63zs