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<p>A stunning new video of Iceland's rumbling, smoking volcano shows rainbow-like shockwaves belching from the crater like snakes from a can of nuts.</p> <p>A stunning new video of Iceland's rumbling, smoking volcano Eyjafjallajokull shows rainbow-like shockwaves belching from the crater like snakes from a can of nuts.</p>

Awesome pics of Mother Nature

Ash and Lightning Above an Icelandic Volcano Credit & Copyright: Marco Fulle (Stromboli Online) Explanation: Why did the recent volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash? Although the large ash plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly noticeable because it drifted across such well populated areas. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in southern Iceland began erupting on March 20, with a second eruption starting under the center of small glacier on April 14. Neither eruption was unusually powerful. The second eruption, however, melted a large amount of glacial ice which then cooled and fragmented lava into...

The worry now is that the Eyjafjallajokull volcano may cause the Katla volcano to erupt. Scientists fear that a Katla eruption would be a much larger and much more dangerous eruption than Eyjafjallajokull was. The Katla volcano is sitting on a glacier that has much ice covering.

Explanation: Why did a picturesque 2010 volcanic eruption in Iceland create so much ash? Although the large ash plume was not unparalleled in its abundance, its location was particularly noticeable because it drifted across such well-populated areas. The Eyjafjallajökull volcano in southern Iceland began erupting on 2010 March 20, with a second eruption starting under the center of a small glacier on 2010 April 14. Neither eruption was unusually powerful. The second eruption, however, melted a large amount of glacial ice which then cooled and fragmented lava into gritty glass particles that were carried up with the rising volcanic plume....

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Viking longhouse that many believe was the home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, thought to be the first European born in the New World.</p> <p>The 1,000-year-old ruins were found in a glacial valley in northern Iceland during a survey of Viking-era buildings led by archaeologists at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>

<p>LOS ANGELES, California (AP) -- Archaeologists have uncovered the remains of a Viking longhouse that many believe was the home of Snorri Thorfinnsson, thought to be the first European born in the New World.</p> <p>The 1,000-year-old ruins were found in a glacial valley in northern Iceland during a survey of Viking-era buildings led by archaeologists at the University of California, Los Angeles.</p>

Auroracoin, the “cryptocurrency for Iceland”, will begin distributing auroracoins to the country’s citizens this week, starting tomorrow, 25th March. The distribution, which is being called Airdrop, will send 50% of the total auroracoins in circulation to the country’s populace. Icelandic residents that enter their permanent resident ID on auroracoin’s official website will receive 31.8 AUR (roughly $385 at press time). The fourth-place digital currency in terms of overall market cap, Auroracoin quickly rose to prominence even amongst the myriad of new digital currencies for its unique approach to community building. Further, as it climbed up the market cap leaderboard, auroracoin...

Explanation: If you see a sky like this -- photograph it. A month ago in Iceland, an adventurous photographer (pictured) chanced across a sky full of aurora and did just that. In the foreground lies the stratovolcano Öræfajökull. In the background, among other sky delights, lies the constellation of Orion, visible to the aurora's left. Auroras are sparked by energetic particles from the Sun impacting the magnetic environment around the Earth. Resultant energetic particles such as electrons and protons rain down near the Earth's poles and impact the air. The impacted air molecules obtain excited electrons, and when electrons in...

An Alaska senator said the State Department called his office today to say that they would be creating a post for a U.S. ambassador to the Arctic. Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska) introduced the United States Ambassador at Large for Arctic Affairs Act a year ago, pressing Secretary of State John Kerry to make the appointment on economic and national security grounds. Six of the eight Arctic nations currently have ambassador-level diplomats representing their interests before the Arctic Council. The United States will assume the chairmanship of the Arctic Council in 2015. “It’s not always easy explaining to Washington bureaucrats how...

"If these negotiations [with Iran] fail, there are two grim alternatives," said Sen. Richard Durbin, "a nuclear Iran, or war, or perhaps both." Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham returned from the Munich security conference saying that even John Kerry agrees that President Obama's Syrian policy has failed. They are urging another look at air strikes. North Korea is warning that should the annual U.S.-South Korean military exercises go forward in March, it could mean war, possibly nuclear war. Philippines President Benigno Aquino III this week compared his country's situation to Czechoslovakia in 1938, and the disputed islets off his...

A paper published January 21st in Quaternary Science Reviews reconstructs storm activity in Iceland over the past 1,200 years and finds storminess and extreme weather variability was far more common during the Little Ice Age in comparison to the Medieval Warm Period and the 20th century. The paper adds to many other peer-reviewed publications finding global warming decreases storm activity, the opposite of claims by climate alarmists....

American progressives like to think of their country as backward and reactionary compared to Europe. And they have never been more right than now when Europe and the rest of the First World have gone right while America under Obama has been left back. Recently Australia, Japan and Norway welcomed in conservative governments. Tony Abbott, Australia’s new prime minister, is a former heavyweight boxer who attended Oxford and is putting a spoke in the wheel of the Global Warming ecohoax. Japan is casting off its pacifism and standing up to the People’s Republic of China and Norway gave its left-wing...

Elf advocates in Iceland joined forces with environmentalists to urge authorities to abandon a highway project that they claim will disturb elf habitat. The project has been halted until the supreme court of Iceland rules on a case brought by a group known as Friends of Lava, who cite both the environmental impact and the detrimental effect on elf culture of the road project. The group has regularly mobilised hundreds of people to block bulldozers building a direct route from the tip of the Álftanes peninsula, where the president has a property, to the Reykjavik suburb of Gardabaer. Issues about...

**SNIP** Fine so far, that experience mirrors our own. Now, step into the unknown, at least unknown here at home. What if a mass movement put pressure on, and kept it up? What if their incessant and unyielding demands toppled yet more of the establishment? What if they formed a committee of average citizens, including a large percentage of the unaffiliated, and rewrote their Constitution? What if they arrested, prosecuted and jailed the bankers whose actions caused the crisis, instead of rewarding them with fat paydays? What if their actions, entirely peaceful, restored liberty and fiscal sanity to their country?...

Consider a country where banking interests balloon debt by lending to people who cannot possibly pay back their loans. These toxic assets then threaten to destroy the national economy. Banking interests plead with the civil government to rescue them for the sake of the economy. The civil government bails them out with taxpayer money. Sound familiar? Well, that’s where the similarities end between the banking crisis in Iceland which began in 2008, and the banking crisis that occurred in the States a year earlier.Taxpayers in Iceland didn’t just sit back and allow the bail out. They thronged the streets banging...

Police in Iceland said Monday they shot dead a gunman — the first time armed police have killed someone in the nation. Iceland, which has a tiny population of around 320,000, has a low crime rate and gun violence is extremely rare. Its regular police force does not carry firearms. Haraldur Johannessen, National Commissioner of the Icelandic Police, said Monday's incident was unprecedented. Police said officers were called to an apartment in the Reykjavik suburb of Arbaer early Monday when a man fired a shotgun from inside the flat. Two policemen, who were not armed, were shot at when trying...

AFTER 40 years of hesitation and seven hard years of reform and lobbying, Turkey is basking today in the most qualified of invitations to begin the process of joining Europe - a continent whose eastern half the Ottoman empire controlled for centuries. A European Commission report released yesterday, which paves the way for a deciding vote by the 25-member European Union at its December summit, was heavily qualified, and Turkish leaders were muted in their expressions of delight at their initial success. Presenting the decision to the European parliament last night, commission president Romano Prodi said it was a "qualified...

Explanation: What's happening in the sky? On this cold winter night in Iceland, quite a lot. First, in the foreground, lies the largest glacier in Iceland: Vatnajokull. On the far left, bright green auroras appear to emanate from the glacier as if it was a volcano. Aurora light is reflected by the foreground lake Jökulsárlón. On the far right is a long and unusual lenticular cloud tinged with green light emitted from another aurora well behind it. Just above this lenticular cloud are unusual iridescent lenticular clouds displaying a broad spectral range of colors. Far beyond the lenticular is the...

2006, climate change experts from Bangor University in north Wales found a very special clam while dredging the seabeds of Iceland. At that time scientists counted the rings on the inside shell to determine that the clam was the ripe old age of 405. Unfortunately, by opening the clam which scientists refer to as "Ming," they killed it instantly. Cut to 2013, researchers have determined that the original calculations of Ming's age were wrong, and that the now deceased clam was actually 102 years older than originally thought. Ming was 507 years old at the time of its demise.