overview of the eruption seen from NASA satellite April 17th
4 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Thank you for your very informative blog postings. I have a question regarding the current volcano vs the Laki volcano which caused so much damage world-wide in 1783 -- from what I was reading, it said that Laki spewed very poisonous gases. What kind of poisonous gases? How does Laki's gasses compare with the current volcano's gasses?
the population of Iceland fell by 25% due to fluorosis caused by the eruption of the volcano Laki in 1783. But this was an indirect cause. Iceland suffered failures of cereal crops because of the fluor content, that was much higher in the Laki eruption than now. the gases now and then are more or less the same, it is just the amount theat made the difference. most people died of famine because of crop failure not because they were breathing fluor gases. Although it probably shortened peoples lives by some years.
Thanks for the prompt explanation to my questions. In Canada the media focus has been mostly about stranded airline passengers and the money being lost by the airline companies. But just this mornining on CBC Radio Canada I listened to a very interesting interview with an Icelandic geologist about the farms being affected and a shorter inverview with a farmer whose land, animals and home were in the path of the ashfall, etc. I visited Iceland three years ago (and will visit this summer also) and found the farms and natural beauty of this area to be totally awe inspiring.
the foreign media have tended to exaggerate thing a bit here in iceland, i heard one reporter telling he was standing in reykjavik and the ash was pouring down over him, when he in fact was standing close to the volcanoc wich is 150 km away. it is only a small area of iceland that has been affected by this eruption, the rest is very fine:0)
4 comments:
Thank you for your very informative blog postings. I have a question regarding the current volcano vs the Laki volcano which caused so much damage world-wide in 1783 -- from what I was reading, it said that Laki spewed very poisonous gases. What kind of poisonous gases? How does Laki's gasses compare with the current volcano's gasses?
Thank you kindly.
Ferne Gudnason in Canada
the population of Iceland fell by 25% due to fluorosis caused by the eruption of the volcano Laki in 1783. But this was an indirect cause. Iceland suffered failures of cereal crops because of the fluor content, that was much higher in the Laki eruption than now. the gases now and then are more or less the same, it is just the amount theat made the difference. most people died of famine because of crop failure not because they were breathing fluor gases. Although it probably shortened peoples lives by some years.
Thanks for the prompt explanation to my questions. In Canada the media focus has been mostly about stranded airline passengers and the money being lost by the airline companies. But just this mornining on CBC Radio Canada I listened to a very interesting interview with an Icelandic geologist about the farms being affected and a shorter inverview with a farmer whose land, animals and home were in the path of the ashfall, etc. I visited Iceland three years ago (and will visit this summer also) and found the farms and natural beauty of this area to be totally awe inspiring.
Ferne
the foreign media have tended to exaggerate thing a bit here in iceland, i heard one reporter telling he was standing in reykjavik and the ash was pouring down over him, when he in fact was standing close to the volcanoc wich is 150 km away.
it is only a small area of iceland that has been affected by this eruption, the rest is very fine:0)
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