For our readers away from Iceland and Scandinavia, in case you haven't heard:
Large parts of Iceland are covered with ashes from the eruption at Grimsvötn on Iceland. The vulcano is located right under Europe's largest glacier, and once again nature shows its absolute power. The ash cloud is on its way to Scandinavia and southern Europe. (some photos here)
Last night I was a spectator of one of Nature´s amazing displays, a volcanic eruption on Iceland on webcam. Eyjafjallajökull put up a show for real, see pics in my Flickr album.
I´m totally amazed, the lava eruptions was at least a 100-200 meters high.
When you have gotten tired of your too colorful and contrasty screen background and need something black to rest your eyes on, try one of these. I love the one with the black labrador and the waterdrop on the chrysantemum petal. I know some readers of this blog probably would pick the black LEGOs :)
This one called leafage is by (matt) on Flickr (creative commons license).
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A huge ash cloud is moving in over Scandinavia and Britain, and as of Thursday night all air traffic has been canceled in large parts of western Europe. Check it out on this map of flights in the air. See, not one plane over Scandinavia and the British Isles. The airplane's jet engines can get destroyed if they get volcanic ash, consisting of mostly glass, and etc, in them. The sunsets are nice too because of the extra pollutants, here are some photos of the setting sun in Europe from today.
We live in interesting times, indeed.
The volcano under Eyjafjallajökull is erupting on Iceland. Jökull means glacier and the mountain is called Eyjafjall. I found a good site with pictures, here, thanks boston.com, and the picture on top of this post too.
Iceland is a country known to me. Here I have stayed under the shadow of this very volcano, for months I lived there. Some evenings after the sun had set, the ice cap of Eyjafjallajökull seemed to glow with an inner light. I have no other way to describe it. Every morning you looked that way to see if you could see the volcano or if it was hidden in clouds. On the old postcard picture LS published you can see Eyjafjallajökull, the snowcovered mountain on the right.
Volcanos are amazing, and I have never felt more aware of Earth as an everchanging environment than here, in Iceland (Ísland). Here I have swum in hot water in natural basins, under the stars under the volcano Katla and Myrdalsjökull and in deep caves at Myvatn. I have dug my fingers deep into the sand in active areas and felt the soil being warmer in the ground than on the surface (Landmannalaugar). I have walked on 10 year old lava-fields at Krafla, still wenting sulphuric gas (Myvatn) and seen the mud boil (Namafjall) and water gush from geysers ("geysirs"). For a Swede used to old rocks of granite lying apparently unchanged for eternity this is a totally different experience. The ground is alive, and earthquakes is part of normal life.
Volcanoes are also scaring, they can overtake a lush country with thick ash layers. I have walked and ridden through ash-covered barren lands, where nothing but a few bushes and grasses can live. The southern coast of Iceland is covered in mile by mile of black volcanic sand.
I want to go there again, and experience nature in constant change. I wish I had been there overlooking the volcanic eruption as shown on the pictures. Instead I follow the events on the internet, like at the Volcanism Blog.
I am sitting here at home with a sinus infection and in between doing work work, gardening, and walking on the road to get fresh air, doing dishes and drinking tea, and sleeping and sniffling with a headache, I find little gems online.
How about this modelmaker, using body parts as backgrounds: ski slope, paint job, and bee keeper?
And this old photo of a combined beer garden, barbeque joint and gas station from 1940's Louisiana? I bet that bbq was good, not so sure about the beer :).
I have always loved aerial photography, and I found this great collection from areas around the world. Check out the mountain on Iceland, Aral Sea, cities, and the Amazon River.
I remember an art book I saw a long time ago in Sweden with aerial photography of Swedish landscapes. It was so beautiful! I have no idea who took the photos or wrote the book. I think it also was an exhibit of them at Kulturhuset in Stockholm, so this was at least 20 years ago. Oh well, one day I will probably find it in a used book-store. This type of photography gives you a new perspective on things :).
In a previous post, LS showed a oystercatcher stamp. In the discussion we started wondering about the Icelandic/faroyan name of the bird Tjaldur. See more about the explanation in LS post. Here is a horse in pace with very stiff legs and a painted icelandic horse named Tjaldur frá Holum.
Kraken is a mythical giant squid off the coasts of Iceland and Norway, and LA is really the expert on this subject, not me. This fierce ocean beast has been shown on at least two stamps. One features Disney's animated movie of Jules Verne's Twenty thousand leagues under the sea. I guess this is one of those cases where the myth actually might be real, since there really are giant, giant squids down deep in the oceans.
The west point of Iceland with a lot of birds breeding, puffins etc.
A hundred meters high waterfall and you can walk behind it in a cave.
This is the border between America and Europe. Here the continents diverge in transatlantic ridge.
Hot gas and heat is coming up from the soil. We had some earthquake 3,7 on the Richter scale. I was sleeping and didn't notice.
A big sandur with the river Markarfljot where we stayed for four days.
This is the glacier which was the closest to us. Eyafjallajokel.
This is Thorsmork, a wonderful and exciting place.
45 icelandic horses were eating grass around our small houses in Husadalur.
A hot spring.
Iceland is very vivid in my memory, especially so when AnS just has been there. This weeks picture shows a man on his road home in the evening on the peninsula of Snaefellsnes (1998). It´s not a glacier, it´s just snow on the top of the mountains. But it´s a beautiful spot and this picture ends up as my background picture on the computer over and over again.
Back at work again by the way, trying to get back into my "working mind" after a looong vacation! Listening to the sound of a computer fan....O.K... some music might be a better choice.
E.H
