Live feed from Iceland erupting volcano [video]

https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/03/20/live-feed-from-iceland-volcano

by lknik • 5 years ago

631 158 5 years ago

ruv.is

m3at• 5 years ago

Strikingly beautiful!

It's hard to get a sense of the scale of the scene, anyone happen to know how far away the webcam is from the peak?

Tepix2• 5 years ago

I see a few rocks in the foreground and a lot of fog. Fagradalsfjall is nowhere in sight as of 08:34 UTC.

Edit: Now 20 minutes later the white smoke is gone. Stunning!

input_sh• 5 years ago

Ashes and sunlight are obstructing the current view, if you go a little back in the stream, you'll see what's happening.

granra• 5 years ago

Not too far I think. This eruption is apparently competing with one other eruption on being the smallest eruption on record in Iceland.

Source: am Icelandic and read it on the news.

asgeir4• 5 years ago

Looks to be about half a kilometer. The webcam looks to be at about 63.89045405043735, -22.279054215941507 and the main crater is at about 63.88921695342744, -22.269097856211175

The main crater is only a few tens of meters tall.

jstanley2• 5 years ago

About?! The 14th decimal place of latitude is worth ~0.15mm!

hr2016• 5 years ago

The camera is located on Fagradalsfjall and the eruption is in Geldingadalir. The exact location of the camera I do not know, but its somewhere in the ~1km range.

Tepix2• 5 years ago

Fagradalsfjall is only 385m high.

lysp• 5 years ago

A photographer took a FPV drone video (literally) over the top.

The shot is amazing:

https://www.facebook.com/steinbekk/posts/10224917280624476

scrdhrt• 5 years ago

I wonder how the drone looked afterwards

willis936• 5 years ago

Have you ever burnt a resistor?

It likely looks like a 10 pound burned resistor.

Zealotux• 5 years ago

Woah, it looks like a 3D render, surreal.

mstade• 5 years ago

My first thought was that it could just as well have been a shot from Mustafar in Star Wars. Stunning video!

anthk2• 5 years ago

To me it looked like a demoscene clip.

dageshi• 5 years ago

He really went for it didn't he? A bit lower and it'd be toast

jcims• 5 years ago

That and he flew through a shower of molten rock, the smallest little blob would take that drone out.

Some things are with the risk though, turned out amazing!

gpvos• 5 years ago

A bit higher too; there's a lump of lava that ended up above it.

dessant• 5 years ago

Facebook may ask you to log in to view the video, here's a direct link to the video file:

https://scontent-lax3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t66.36240-6/10000000_...

raverbashing• 5 years ago

I am surprised the drone survived (or did it?)

techdragon• 5 years ago

In case anyone doesn’t notice this little detail... right in the last few seconds you can see one of the erupting chunks of lava pass out of the frame in the vertical direction. It looks like the drone made a lucky pass through the top of the erupting lava plume, narrowly missing red hot chunks of lava.

To clarify... it looks like that, can anyone more familiar with the original post confirm more details? Because it could obviously just have been a trick of the drone’s speed combined with the camera field of view just making it look like it whizzed under a chunk of red hot lava... which is still neat camera work... but it would be so much more awesome if it wasn’t just a camera effect and it actually did fly through between erupting chunks of lava.

airhead9694• 5 years ago

I could only think:

TOO LOW - TERRAIN! PULL UP! TOO LOW - TERRAIN! PULL UP!

PUSH_AX2• 5 years ago

Drone pilot got really lucky with that fly past. Very risky, the reward was a great shot though.

_jstreet• 5 years ago

Amazing shot - I wonder what a thermal image would look like of the same scene. Must be pretty hot flying over top of that lava.

hnick• 5 years ago

It's all just white to me when I click the video. Not sure if damaged or a bright light is shining at it? Fog maybe?

Edit: nvm it was clouds or fog, moving now!

MauranKilom• 5 years ago

Just fog. Clicking around on the timeline (5h+ by now) allows you to see the various stages.

vigneshk• 5 years ago

It works for me now!

royjacobs• 5 years ago

This reminds me of the trip I took to Iceland in 2010. Just on the day we were about to fly back home we were instructed to turn on the Hotel TV, which was showing very eerie video footage of Eyjafjallajökull erupting. The stark emergency chyron combined with the vague video footage gave us a very unsettled feeling.

Then we walked into the lobby where some 80s pop was playing, the staff was cheery and asked what we'd like to have for breakfast because we'd probably fly home a few hours delayed. I guess you become unflappable when you literally live on top of volcanoes :)

On the Iceland Air flight home we watched a very interesting documentary about the Eldfell eruptions in 1973. It's really fascinating, although I can't seem to find a link to the docu. See also: https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2017/01/the-eldfell-erupti...

mrunseen• 5 years ago

Non-paywall version: https://archive.is/ALqHs

hugi8• 5 years ago

I went for a hike there on Saturday night, here are a few of the shots I got:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VeFBYeKa30w&list=PLoqbqfn2ku...

Unfortunately, photos and movies don't capture the atmosphere and sheer scale of the thing. What might look like some rocks rolling from the crater is cose to building-sized. Still, it's defined as a small eruption.

Edit: iCloud rate-limited the playlist I originally posted, so changed to YouTube playlist. Original link: https://www.icloud.com/sharedalbum/#B0OG6XBubGEA3MC

srich36• 5 years ago

Awesome videos! Is it not dangerous to get that close? I got apprehensive just watching that

hugi8• 5 years ago

When I got back from the hike I heard on the radio that this location was, ahem, not recommended. It was closed off yesterday and a short while later the crater walls collapsed in that direction.

https://youtu.be/eeAf1kZ7_ZE

But there were a few of us at that spot at the time so at least I wouldn't have died alone :).

matsemann2• 5 years ago

It almost looks like the hole is 2 meters in diameter and that you're standing right next to it. But then a person in red coat is really small. How big is the hole really?

hugi8• 5 years ago

I don't have exact measurements. But for some reference, here's a drone shot from the location. I'm the lone guy standing above the SAR team.

https://www.hugi.io/img/crater.jpg

dagurp• 5 years ago

The caldera is 30m high

busymom02• 5 years ago

Your iCloud album is no longer available "due to high demand"

aargh_aargh• 5 years ago

That is ridiculous... Oh, an actual demand for the sharing service? Let's shut it down temporarily until the demand passes. Have they never heard of caching?

chrisco2552• 5 years ago

Apparently Apple has rate-limited this shared album. I got to see the stunning footage before it was cut off. If you get a chance to upload it to another source, please circle back with a link!

hugi8• 5 years ago

I didn't know they did that, thanks for the notification! Moved some of the videos to a YouTube playlist and updated the post.

markdown• 5 years ago

"Your browser cannot play this video."

I'm running Chrome v89.0 on MacOS.

est31• 5 years ago

I think the video might be in H.265 format. Outside of Safari, no browser supports it, not even Chrome. https://caniuse.com/hevc

The video was probably originally in H.265 format and Apple apparently did no attempt at transcoding it to a format that's more widely understood like H.264.

stoolpigeon• 5 years ago

I've never been anywhere near any volcano. If you don't mind - what does it smell like? Could you feel the heat from it? What was the sound like? If you don't have the time I understand but I'd love to hear what the experience was like to be that close.

hugi8• 5 years ago

Oh yes, you feel the warmth. The smell that immediately hit me was comforting, like you just lit a nice hardwood barbecue, probably from soil and plant material burning when coming into contact with the magma. The crater is loud and deeply rumbly and makes you feel the raw power of the Earth.

brabel• 5 years ago

The first time I saw volcanic activity was in Rotorua[0], in New Zealand... I think the big volcano there is dormant but because it sits on top of a huge caldera, it still has plenty of volcanic activity, including boiling mud and geysers! It's an amazing place to visit. You can feel the warmth of the rocks and near the geyser, there are water ponds nearly as hot as boiling (incredibly clear water too). Seeing the geyser explode is the highlight of the visit, of course... But just seeing the boiling mud (which you can see everytwhere in town, basically) and hearing the noise of boiling liquid under your feet is an amazing feeling.

I was young and stayed in the local backpacker which had a naturally-warm water pool!

As you approach the city, you feel a very strong smell of sulphur (a smell described usually as rotten eggs), but as you stay in the town you more or less get used to the smell and stop feeling it... it's not as bad as it sounds.

Highly recommend a visit if you're around Australia or the South Pacific.

One day I want to visit Iceland as well, it looks amazing.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rotorua

anonymousDan• 5 years ago

I climbed Mt. Etna once (in Sicily). It wasn't erupting at the time but there were active lava flows etc. The scary thing was that even though conditions were relatively benign, a sudden change of wind direction blew a stream of sulphorous-smelling air in the direction of our group and we all had to run back down to the chair lift gasping for air.

sizzzzlerz3• 5 years ago

The American author, Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) wrote "The smell of sulfur is strong, but not unpleasant to a sinner.” after visiting Hawaii's Kilauea Volcano in his book "Roughing It".

no_one_ever2• 5 years ago

Not been near a volcano, but Iceland also has a very sulphuric smell in general, like eggs almost. It is in everything like the air and the water.

sjs382• 5 years ago

If your question wasn't specific to this volcano, but any volcano, the answer is that every one is different.

A few years ago, I visited the Masaya Volcano in Nicaragua. It wasn't one you could get super close to, and the photos are a bit underwhelming, but it was still very impressive to see in person. This is what you can expect to see as a tourist: https://hotelplazacolon.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/10/Masay...

The heat coming off of the volcano was significant, but not exactly overwhelming. The sulfur smell was overwhelming (apparently Masaya emits a lot of sulfur dioxide), and there were restrictions as the length of time tourists could stay at the volcano due to the gasses. There were signs all over, posted in English and Spanish warning about the health effects of the gasses emitted.

rcpt• 5 years ago

I've been up one in Guatemala but the thing that I remember most was how popular lava is with hoardes of tourists

nlh2• 5 years ago

I'd add one anecdote: I went hiking on one of the Hawaiian volcanos a few years ago and got up close with some active (but extremely slow-moving) lava. Here's a pic of me poking it with a stick:

https://imgur.com/DuwuCg1

What amazed me was the absolute sheer about of heat generated from that one TINY little patch. Like, as intense as standing in front of a pizza oven going at full blast. I could stand about ~15 seconds of it once I exposed the molten part, and then I had to step away. Overall in the area it was warm - mostly because it was Hawaii and hot out! - but also because of general ambient warmth. But it was just that - warmth.

But when I exposed that piece of molten lava - that was HEAT.

canada_dry• 5 years ago

Damn travel ban!!

I'd strike two things off my bucket list: visit Iceland, get up-close-n-personal with an active volcano. And quite possibly a third: seeing Northern Lights.

I spent a few days at Arenal in Costa Rica years ago and left without experiencing any volcanic activity.

asgeir4• 5 years ago

And if you want to see the definition of terror, look at the second video on this page when part of the main crater collapsed https://www.ruv.is/frett/2021/03/21/hraunrennsli-dagsins-a-o...

adflux• 5 years ago

What in the name of god are these tourists(?) doing there !?

4gotunameagain• 5 years ago

It's not that dangerous in real time (lava is slooow), especially if you have hills like they do close by to go up on.

fantod• 5 years ago

The definition of terror is people laughing while trotting out of the way?

simonebrunozzi• 5 years ago

I would love to visit Iceland this late Spring, it would be my second visit after my first one in 2008.

I am wondering if anyone knows what the covid-related restrictions are. I would go there primarily to hike, and secondarily to try to meet interesting startups.

kd5bjo• 5 years ago

https://www.covid.is/sub-categories/visiting-iceland

StavrosK5• 5 years ago

So 12 days of quarantine? Sounds expensive.

BrentOzar• 5 years ago

I'm in Iceland for 6 months on their new teleworker visa. It took a couple of months to get, but it's pretty straightforward: https://ozar.me/2021/01/whew-we-got-iceland-teleworker-visas...

Hard_Space• 5 years ago

This brings back memories of the 2003 era Etna eruptions, when I was living in southern Italy. After the regular programming stopped, the RAI channels would just run a live feed of the volcano spewing lava at night, all night long. It was a hell of a screen saver!

DyslexicAtheist3• 5 years ago

pretty cool how helpless we are when it comes to predicting anything that goes on within:

RÚV engineers worked through the night to revive the previously-popular earthquake monitoring webcam and to re-orientate it towards the volcano. It was previously located on Borgarfjall when scientists believed an eruption was most likelt at Nátthagi.

joncrane• 5 years ago

I love the juxtaposition of the blowing snow with the superhot lava. Something about the union of extremes.

voisin• 5 years ago

Drone footage on Reddit: https://reddit.com/r/BeAmazed/comments/mahr6j/fpv_drone_foot...

mlindner2• 5 years ago

Much better footage of the original with higher framerate: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wQOblgAvrHw

nanna2• 5 years ago

It's almost as if the Icelandic Tourism board turned to the Ásatrúarfélagið for help bringing tourism back. 'Guðmundur, everyone's dreaming of flying towards the equator when they're allowed, not towards us in the Artic circle. What can we do?'

'WE SHALL SUMMON SURTR'!

runarberg• 5 years ago

There was a huge debate some time ago about Christianity vs. Ásatrú on Alþingi (the Icelandic general assembly). During this debate news broke that an eruption had started in Svínahraun—a few dozen km east of the current Geldingadalur eruption. Allegedly some proponents of Ásatrú suggested that the eruption was the fault of the gods not liking the fact that this debate was happening. However this argument was quickly dismissed as the debate was already happening on top of an ancient lava field and the debaters couldn’t fathom what must have angered the gods that caused it to erupt in the ancient times.

See Kristni Saga (chapter 11)

nanna2• 5 years ago

When the Kárahnjúkar dam was being built the Ásatrú would visit the construction site and curse it, so Landsvirkjun (Iceland's power company) would send priests down to sprinkle holy water over it, to which the Ásatrú responded by cursing it, and the priests again sent in... this went on round and round. The Ásatrú were broadly against the project.

Arguably this had some effect. When a prominent anti-dam farmer from near Egilsstaðir was excavating his land to build an extension to his house, strange things kept on happening: His cows treading on their udders, workers falling into the pit and breaking bones. His wife claimed to see two figures when each time one of these happenings occured. An old man and a young. Finally in the pit they came across the central beam of an ancient house, and a magnificent circle made of a spherical stone made of spheres containing crystals - you found individual spheres - I know this is the wrong term sorry - scattered around their farmland. Anyway upon finding these the farmer called to the ghosts and promised that the stone would be taken to the museum in Egilsstaðir and the beam would be featured prominantly in their new farmhouse, in exchange for the ghosts leaving them in peace and haunting Kárahnjúkar instead. It was then in the process of its initial flood.

Soon after very strange things occured at Kárahnjúkar. Workers were injured, serious technical problems manifested.

If there's anywhere in the world where making pacts with supernatural forces is possible, it's Iceland.

tamaharbor• 5 years ago

Learning grade school science (50 years ago) would have been so much easier if they just showed me these videos. Amazing!

sizzzzlerz3• 5 years ago

Great video but its amusing to see so many people up close and personal with the erupting lava. Here in the US, our National Park Service closed the entire area surrounding the crater at Kilauea when it started erupting last year. Unless you were a volcanologist, you aren't able to get within several miles of it.

MrDresden3• 5 years ago

Having the police close off the whole area around the eruption is simply not feasible.

The view here in Iceland is more that people should heed the advice given, and use good judgement if they decide to go see the eruption anyway.

Certain areas are closed off though, and the police and SaR teams will interact with those who go there.

orobinson• 5 years ago

Iceland seems to have a very relaxed approach to health and safety. I visited in 2006 and remember walking around boiling pools of mud on very slippery ground with nothing but a single token piece of rope to prevent tourists from slipping and falling to a slow and painful death.

MrDresden3• 5 years ago

Since the meteoric rise in tourism post financial crisis, more funds have been put into upgrading many of the tourist areas with propper walking paths and cordoning off certain areas.

This has mostly been done to preserve the areas from undue damage from humans, but also for their increased safety.

Our view of health and safety is still vastly different from the US for example. It does help that liability for your own personal health most often lies on your own shoulders instead of somebody else's.

chrisco2552• 5 years ago

Iceland must be less litigious and have less lawyers per capita.

lostlogin3• 5 years ago

New Zealand is/was similar. Then in 2019 White Island erupted and killed 22 people and injured a similar number. The injuries have been truely horrific. Skin grafts alone came to a quarter of a million square centimetres of skin for victims.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Whakaari_/_White_Island...

https://i.stuff.co.nz/national/health/118741979/whakaari--wh...

sizzzzlerz3• 5 years ago

That's what has been done at Yellowstone National Park. All the tourist-accessible thermal features have boardwalks built out to and around them for both safety and environmental protection from the millions of vistors. Other features, like Old Faithful geyser, has been surround by cement paths and benches for visitors to view eruptions from. The backcountry, however, has no such facilities and people who visit those are basically on their own and need to use their own discretion. That said, people die in hot springs every year because they're too dumb to recognize the dangers.

pkingolfsson• 5 years ago

This approach has yielded us Icelandair's with fewer idiots therefore no baseless claims for lawsuit.

You see.. they fall into these boiling pools of mud. Problem solved.

bondolo• 5 years ago

Go back in the live stream a few hours and then watch a timelapse by hitting the "forward 15 seconds" button. There is more motion happening than is obvious watching the real time video.

baxtr• 5 years ago

Is it just my feeling fueled by the news or is there currently an increased / above normal levels volcano activity around the globe?

pimlottc• 5 years ago

Yes, Mount Etna (Italy) and Kīlueaua (Hawaii) are also both current erupting. I’m not an expert but this does appear to be an unusually active time.

vzaliva• 5 years ago

I hope somebody is recording this stream. It could make an amazing time-lapse video later.

stewx• 5 years ago

Direct YouTube link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BA-9QzIcr3c

dang• 5 years ago

I captured the Iceland volcano eruption from up close - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=26543533 - March 2021 (14 comments)

pugworthy• 5 years ago

I have this on my TV now as a sort of screen saver. It's mesmerizing in a way.

_allingoodtime_• 5 years ago

Wowzers.Question: Is there a supervolcano in Iceland?

andrewflnr• 5 years ago

Not exactly, in the sense that I don't think it will be the site of a large, violent eruption: the pressure has too many less-violent ways to escape. However, it (probably) does have a mantle plume under it, which is the main ingredient in other supervolcanoes. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland_hotspot

Also, fun fact from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supervolcano: "Many volcanologists consider Iceland to be a large igneous province that is currently being formed."

Live feed from Iceland erupting volcano [video]

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