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ICELAND!

Recently I went to Iceland which obviously was fucking great. Unfortunately I was on holiday with other people who didn't want to spend the whole time doing volcano focussed shit, why I'm even friends with these people I don't know. I actually went to a festival on an abandoned NATO airbase and it was daylight all the time which was very cool and did make you think a zombie apocalypse was about to start. But obviously no one cares about that so here is some of volcanic shit from my Iceland trip. It will only be some volcanic shit as everything in Iceland is really volcanic; on the journey from the airport to Reykjavik you go through lava fields which are insanely cool and have this weird moss growing over all over the solidified lava.

 Also all the rocks in Iceland are mental.

The place I really wanted to go to was Snaefellsjokull National Park on the west coast. I choose this place partly as I have a theory about the UK that the Atlantic ravaged west coast is more exciting than the east coast which I thought would probably translate to Iceland too. There is no active volcano there but the main glacier in the centre of the park is the entry point in Journey to the Centre of the Earth. Sadly it's an inactive volcano but unless they are erupting, what's the fucking difference? As well as the glacier there is a lot of other cool shit around there, mainly really beautiful beaches with crazy rock formations and lots of waterfalls. Initially we were planning to spend more time there doing a bit of camping and stuff but it turned out we didn't have time. So we just did a tour with a crazy guide who kept going on about jailing bankers and elves.

 This was on one of the beaches, crawling through this hole was a bit like being reborn as the beach was noisy, rocky and cold whereas on the other side it was quiet, sunny and peaceful. When I start a cult this will be the initiation ceremony. Swans played at the festival and they will be the soundtrack of my cult, in general Iceland is quite a cultish place.

The other main volcanic thing we did was to go to the Volcano Show which was run by another mentalist. I think lots of Icelanders are mentalists in the most fantastic and lovely way. Basically it was a tiny museum/cinema run by one guy who had been filming every eruption in Iceland for about 60 years, before that his dad had done lots of filming. It was two hours of films about volcanoes, an overview of eruptions in Iceland for 50 years or so, one about the formation of Surtsey and one about the Heimaey eruption. Obviously for me this was heavenly because I can happily watch film of erupting volcanoes for ever, maybe if this isn't your thing it's not so fun. There wasn't loads to see in the museum apart from some geological maps and rocks, which again I fucking love. There is another volcano cinema in Reyjavik called Volcano House which we went to but didn't see the film, it looked more professional and therefore not as good but they had some nice rocks and stuff.

In general Iceland is really cool and really crazy, I think it's the effect of being so cut off from everywhere. I really want to go back and travel around a bit and see all the volcanoes.

X-Volcano-Files

I mentioned in an earlier post that I'm currently watching X-Files. I am not rewatching it as part of some nostalgia trip, I've never watched it before so it's all very exciting, people always tell me to watch cool new programmes but I'm like "I'm only just getting round to watching X-Files, I hadn't watched Buffy until this year, I'm not gonna watch fucking House of Cards'. This post however is not just about what 90s TV shows I have and haven't watched, which would really fucking interesting. I have known for some time that there was likely to be a volcano X-Files episode. It's called Firewalker and it was actually a really good episode, its in the mould of some of my favourite episodes which are monster of the week ones in some remote and claustrophobia inducing setting where everyone goes mad and no one is sure who is sane/alien/trying to kill everyone. It was also notable as it's the first episode Scully's in for a while, obviously I knew that she was coming back as there are shitloads more series but it was good to have her straight talking and impeccable suit wearing back. This is all in the settling of one of the lovely cascade volcanoes with some silicon based life form and people going mental. What more could you want? Here is a totally legal way to watch it.

See inside a volcano.

35 Anniversaries - Mount St Helens and Ian Curtis

Two amazingly important events happened 35 years ago today one volcanic and one not, apparently these events aren't linked but I'm sure I can manage to find a tenuous way in which they are. The events are Mount St Helen's erupted and Ian Curtis died (18th May 1980). Obviously I wasn't alive for either of these events but the fact that Ian Curtis and Joy Division weren't really around in the 80s has pretty much blown my mind.  

The 1980 Mount St Helen's eruption is the biggest in recent history on mainland USA. It's part of the Cascade volcano range which is the American-Canadian range up the west coast, I'm quite obsessed with this area because it also has great forests, cool sounding cities and loads of great fiction is set around there (Twin Peaks, Housekeeping etc). It was a pretty large eruption, perhaps the most dramatic part was that one of sides collapsed producing a massive landslide. 57 people died in the eruption and it was also pretty economically and socially devastating. I think it's really easy to forget about the power and potential impact of ecological disasters especially if you live in the cosy developed world, it's way too easy to feel cut off from nature.

Normally Mount St Helens is portrayed in black and white like Joy Division (although I'm pretty sure colour was invented by the 80s).

Onto Ian Curtis (the link will come later when I think of it), I love Joy Division but it's quite rare that I want to listen to them (apart from now which is research), it's just too hard. It's just so bleak and raw (my boyfriend has epilepsy and depression so maybe it's all a bit too close to home) but I'm not gonna go on about how depressing Joy Division because that is just an established fact. I'm amazed it was 35 years ago because they do sound so modern and relevant and maybe that is because of the depressing nature. Without sounding like too much of a dick that raw emotion does kinda transcend time so it's always going to be relatable.

So there we have my link, some things in humanity and nature are inevitable and those are generally shit. Like the incredible force of volcanoes or your own despair just hope you're one of the lucky ones. That's my Mount St Helens/Ian Curtis suicide anniversary message which is in opposition to 'stop and smell the roses' sentiment. Here at Volcano Club we are more likely to stop and smell the roses realise that they are dying from some parasitic infection and understand that is a metaphor that everything good and beautiful eventually decays and turns to shit. Hopefully you can cope with it otherwise love will tear us afuckingpart.  

Volcano of the Week #29 - Shishaldin

I have chosen to write about this volcano for volcano of the week because it's erupting and is in a place called Fox Islands which sound really cool (possibly because I'm watching X-Files and I think there could be a great episode set here). The Fox Islands are part of the Aleutian Island chain which is what links Siberia to Alaska and forms the top part of the ring of fire (definitely could be an X-Files episode). There are around 8,000 people on the Aleutian Islands and natives are known as Unangan, the language is closely related to Eskimo (loads of words for snow blah blah blah). The growing season only lasts 135 days so there is basically nothing there and economy is dependent of military and fishing. The islands along with that bit of Alaska were all originally Russian and according to wikipedia the Russian influence seems generally positive as they preserved the language and tradition of the region. Some of the Russian influences in the area are still present including religion and there are some Orthodox churches. Captain Cook also went there (because he went everywhere cool) and surveyed the islands, the islands were taken over by Americans in 1867. There were some nuclear tests done in 60/70s which seems like a really great thing to do on a chain of volcanic islands.

Back to the volcano, it's apparently the most symmetrical in the world, measuring volcano symmetry sounds like a very fun job. It has quite a lot of low level non eruptive activity including currently and the volcano is on yellow alert. The last eruption occurred last year and the first recorded eruption was in 1824.

Look how symmetrical that babe is.

The End of The World and Lava Lakes

Just a short post because obviously it is end of society and the beginning of a long period of darkness and despair. Here is an update on the Kilauea lava lake which has now overflown and looks pretty cool.    

The really good thing about this video is when you at look the description on youtube it's posted by some mentalist who thinks that its a sign of the end of the world, which is always fun. Even with all the lava overflowing it's still quite calm and mediative. If for whatever reason the world doesn't end then I post something more eruptive soon. 

Lakes of Lava

Now like all sane people I fucking love a good lava lake which are pretty much what they sound like, a lovely crater full of lovely lava. While eruptions can be a bit scary and show off, lave lakes are just there chilling, not really posing any threat, just looking pretty. 

This video is of Kilauea and is about to ooze and spill out over the edge. The volcano has technically been erupting for absolute yonks but probably not from this crater or something.

Looking at lava lakes is one of those vaguely hypnotic things like looking at fire, ice melting or test cricket all of which I can happily watch for hours. There are different types of lava lakes depending on whether or not the lava has formed in that crater or spilled into the crater from another flow, the viscosity of the lava and all that shit can also affect the lava lake. Here are two more excellent lava lakes.

This is one my favourite lava lakes Mount Nyiragongo which is on the DRC and Rwandan border and this volcano is formed by a rift in the African plate. The picture is part of this photo series which is worth looking at. 

This is another African lava lake, Erta Ale and I really like the black scorched look to this lava. Also in all these photos you can see the lovely volcanic rock I'm always amazed at their colours which seem unreal.

Its nice to see the dormant and understated side of volcanoes in comparison to the all the eruptive shit and these glowing lava lakes look like some portal into another dimension. This post is for my mate who is in a six hour meeting which I think has some parallels to lava lakes.