Volcanoes 1 - Lakagigar (Laki Craters)

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In 1783 a fissure 25km in length opened up in the south of Iceland, around Mount Laki, and there began a prolonged volcanic eruption which poured out lava, dust and gases for eight continuous months. It was the world’s 2^nd biggest eruption in historic times. (There was a bigger one, also in Iceland,  at Eldgjá in the 10^thcentury.) The dust cloud, carried south by the winds, caused harvest failures, sickness and death throughout Europe and beyond. Although few Icelanders were killed in the eruption itself, in time half of Iceland’s livestock and a quarter of the population died through starvation and illness.

The fissure, with its craters, looking NE from Mt Laki today. In the distance is the Vatnajokull icecap.

The vicar in the small southern town of Kirkubærklaustur, Jón Steingrimmson, combined the qualities of hero and scientist. Alongside his relief and rescue work he kept a meticulous record of the event, and eventually published a book, Fires of the Earth. He is considered to be the first volcanologist. The book was in print until a year or two ago but seems now to have disappeared. The last copy I saw, in Feb 2014, was on Amazon for 170.00GBP. I paid 7.99 for my copy three years before that. Maybe it will return one day.

A lot of what we know today comes from his records. For instance, because he plotted the points from where the tops of the lava fountains could be seen, trigonometry can tell us how high they were. They went up to 1.4km. The plumes of gas and ash went up to 15km.

14 cubic kilometres of lava were ejected. Two vast lava rivers flowed south to the coast, wiping out fertile land and farms. You drive through those lava fields as you go along the southern Route 1. Now they are made beautiful by a covering of lush green moss.

Lakagigar is a protected area. It is a popular tourist destination but visitors and access are strictly controlled because it is extremely fragile.

There’s loads of information on the net. Here’s a good place to start:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/06/local-and-global-impacts-1793-laki-eruption-iceland/

The craters looking SW from Mt Laki.














Over 230 years, Lakagigar has grown a beautiful thick carpet of moss. Its colour can vary from pastel grey/green to iridescent greeny-gold depending on species and atmospheric conditions.

    Beautiful moss - shame about the phone signal ...

ICV volunteers work here on a regular basis, maintaining footpaths and trails and restoring damaged and eroded areas. Here a volunteer is working on a walking trail, building a footbridge across a crack in the lava.

And here a volunteer is working on the path up Mount Laki.

Our 'commute' to work takes us through the remarkable scenery of the Laki lava fields.

Moss which has been growing for 200 years can be destroyed almost in an instant by being walked on four or five times. 

Here ICV volunteers are working with the Ranger, repairing damaged moss by transplantation.









Iceland has a strict 'No Off-Road' policy. Here we can see why. Vehicle tyres compress the ground, creating a different set of growing conditions, which in turn support a different growth of moss, fixing the tracks as permanent landscape features.

The Edge of the Lava Field at Hrossatunga

Iceland Conservation Volunteers (ICV) is the volunteer arm of Umhverfisstofnun, the Environment Agency of Iceland.  For more information about ICV see: 

 http://www.ust.is/the-environment-agency-of-iceland/volunteers