海角大神

For the past week, the world has gotten a glimpse of a spring campfire, Iceland-style. When the Fagradalsfjall volcano erupted 17 miles south of the capital city of Reykjav铆k, people did not flee in terror. They came by the thousands to watch the fountains of lava. 鈥淚t鈥檚 absolutely breath-taking,鈥澛�. 鈥淚t smells pretty bad,鈥� said another. A few cheeky scientists even cooked hot dogs on the lava flow.

Different volcanoes behave differently. Ash from Iceland鈥檚 Eyjafjallaj枚kull famously disrupted European air travel for about a week in 2010. But when your island is basically nothing but volcanoes, you learn to live with them 鈥� and how to predict what they鈥檒l do. A March 12聽聽began with the words: 鈥淏y the time you read this, a volcano may have erupted.鈥� Exactly one week later, it did.聽

With an array of sensors detecting seismic activity and ground deformation, Iceland knew this was coming. What鈥檚 more, data suggests this could be the beginning of a volcanic cycle that happens every 800 years. 鈥淚f this transpires,鈥澛�, 鈥渢he Reykjanes Peninsula could be bathed in the glow of a thousand volcanic fires that ignite, disappear, and then reappear intermittently for an entire human lifetime.鈥�

That鈥檚 a lot of hot dogs.聽