Iceland
eklemetti | December 31, 2009Here it is, my attempt to recap a year's worth of volcanic events. By no means is this supposed to capture every event, but rather the highlight/lowlights and what most captivated me during 2009. I'll be announcing the winner of the 2009 Pliny for Volcanic Event of the Year tomorrow.
Waimangu Geothermal Valley in New Zealand, taken in January 2009 by Erik Klemetti.
January
The year started out with a trip to New Zealand (well, for me at least) and vistas of the Waimangu Valley, formed in the 1886 eruption of Tarawera on the North Island. We were also still thinking about the late 2008…
catdynamics | November 19, 2009There is a radical proposal in Iceland to restore the economy and rescue the nation from bankruptcy: expand the tax base to recover revenue from the extensive underground economy.
Tax the fucking elves!
Translation by Alda at the Iceland Weather Report
Yeah! The Free Ride Is Over.
Party is over, Elves!
Income and capital gains taxes on the elves - especially the High Light Elves, that should cover the repayments to the UK all by themselves. This applies to all the Hidden Folk.
Ghosts, zombies and others in the afterlife will be charged a Death Tax.
Dwarves will, finally, pay VAT!
That…
catdynamics | November 17, 2009deCode, the genetics startup that genotyped the entire population of Iceland and reconstructed the Book of Icelanders is going down
deCode files for US bankruptcy
assets are to be sold off and company may be liquidated.
This could get complicated - the database of icelandic genetic sequences is not a simple commercial property and I would expect the Icelandic government to intercede to prevents its sale.
This is also catastrophic for Icelandic PhDs - deCode employed a lot of bio researchers, many will probably seek to leave the country, other companies like prokaria will not be able to…
eklemetti | November 10, 2009Geologic and structural map showing the extent of the Campi Flegrei caldera on the north of the Bay of Naples, Italy. Image courtesy of INGV.
One of the writing assignments I always enjoyed in high school was the "compare and contrast". You could sit back and look for stylistic differences between writers and texts - potentially offering signs about the nature of the writers motivations.
I still find it fun - case in point, two article I read about the research drilling that is about to start at the Campei Flegrei in Italy. The Campei Flegrei is a large caldera system that most recently…
catdynamics | October 26, 2009McDonald's to abandon Iceland
Ha ha ha.
Tommaborgari wins.
Mmmm. With cocktail sauce
eklemetti | October 6, 2009So, the field still stands unblemished, having identified all 8 MVPs, usually within less than 7 tries. Nice job!
Current MVP Standings:
volcanista - 1
Elizabeth - 1
Ralph - 1
gijs - 1
Anne - 1
Cam - 1
gg - 1
The Bobs - 1
MVP #7 was Arenal in Costa Rica. It was initially going to be Rincon de la Vieja, but somehow I mixed up the pictures. I think a lot of you know a lot more about Arenal than I do, but it is one of the most active - and easily visited - volcanoes in the Western Hemisphere.
Eyjafjöll volcanoHekla from the northwest in Iceland, not your MVP #8.
MVP #8 was Eyjafjöll (or…
catdynamics | October 2, 2009The Ig Nobel Prizes are out, and Iceland wins big.
The title, explains it all (short version, with apologies to Krugman).
Long version, with translation, follows.
Yes, it is Ig Nobel Prize time, and the winner in Economics are the new Vikings of Finance:
"Economics: The directors, executives, and auditors of four Icelandic banks -- Kaupthing Bank, Landsbanki, Glitnir Bank, and Central Bank of Iceland -- for demonstrating that tiny banks can be rapidly transformed into huge banks, and vice versa -- and for demonstrating that similar things can be done to an entire national economy."
Sadly…
catdynamics | September 25, 2009Peace feels like "the kiss you get from your Mom before you get on the bus for school!"
Diddi (via Ms Hurtz)
It is that old "warrior poet" tradition...
Apparently it is a good way to get lots of kisses.
catdynamics | September 25, 2009Explaining the post-deregulation investment banks of Iceland.
Or, how to make money off banana trees north of the arctic circle...
The Banana Republic of Iceland: Always Six Months Ahead of the Rest of the World
It is of course Inconceivable that something like this would actually happen in a modern democratic republic.
In the original:
catdynamics | August 27, 2009Is it like standing unarmed in front of a column of tanks?
Or is it more like following someone blindly off a cliff into a pool whose depth you do not know?
Iceland knows.
Kaupþing was the largest of the Icelandic Investment Banks.
It grew by 500% in years, on paper at least.
They were inspired.
By the Spruce Goose, apparently.
Though I have to admit, the use of The Agent from the Matrix as a metaphor has some accuracy, despite the apparent lack of irony.
The Space Science/Cure Cancer metaphors are cute. Inaccurate, but cute.
Hoocoodanode it'd all come to a bad end.
I don't think the…
catdynamics | August 3, 2009Interesting things happen when corrupt idiots wielding obsolete laws from colonial times meet modern technology and communication infrastructure...
As you know, Bob, Iceland has been having a bit of a "Banana Republic" moment.
In particular, we were shocked, shocked, to discover that when the conservative Independent Party finally got to implement their dream of massive deregulation, the small number of well connected oligarchs not only managed to loot the treasury, they also indebted the whole country in a classic privatize-the-gains/socialize-the-losses game of moronic risk taking,…
catdynamics | July 30, 2009As you may know, Landsbanki, one of the three former Icelandic commercial banks, left a few billion euros in uninsured deposits lying around, when it collapsed in ignomy.
Mostly in the UK and Netherlands.
The Dutch are getting irate about this...
For perspective, shortly after Landsbanki was privatized, in 2003, as I recall, I closed my account there in 2004 - I had had that account for about 30 years, and closing it was a significant inconvenience.
Y'all should have done as I did.
Anyway, through the gross incompetence of the Icelandic National Bank and various regulators, Iceland…
catdynamics | July 27, 2009That is when a prominent psychic in Iceland predicts there'll be a major earthquake.
Specifically in the Krýsuvík area in the southwest.
This is an area where there have been some minor earthquakes recently.
Ok... we'll see in a few hours I guess.
Quantitative value of "major" is not specified.
Personally I'd put it at magnitude 6 or larger.
She claims to have predicted the earthquakes in Iceland in 2000 and 2008, though I don't see a dated cite for this.
In case you're interested: she also claims to know where Madeleine McCann is, I'd like to think she'd tell Madeleine's parents this, soon…
eklemetti | June 26, 2009Drilling in Iceland lead by geologists from UC Davis hit magma this week. Image courtesy of Peter Schiffman, UC Davis.
Quick props to my officemate here at UC Davis, Naomi Marks, who happened to be part of a team (with UC Davis geology faculty Peter Schiffman and Robert Zierenberg) that drilled into active rhyolite magma in Iceland this week. Doesn't happen very often - this might be the third recorded time humans have drilled into magma - but when it does, it is very exciting. The magma was hit ~2 miles / 5 km below the surface and is likely an offshoot of a larger magmatic system nearby.…
catdynamics | June 25, 2009Icelander responds to housing and car loan crisis in classical style
for a berserker
from IceNews
and he did it on independence day.
I keep telling you, Iceland is just way ahead of everyone else!
RUV news item
Article in visir.is
ok, here it is in english from icenews
with video
60 something, lost house and car to the bank, had the demolition professionally videotaped, when he faced eviction.
He had also apparently defrauded a family of 10 million ISK on a deal for a pre-fab house.
clearing away the debris,
estimated value was about 50 million ISK.
h/t Iceland Weather Report
eklemetti | June 19, 2009Some volcano news before the weekend:
The Barujari vent at Mt. Rinjani erupting in May 2009.
Barujari, the small basaltic volcano located in the crater at Mt. Rinjani, is "spewing 200-meter-high lava", at least according to recent reports. It is unclear if the eruption is, in fact, a fountain or merely strombolian activity throwing incandescent blocks that high (see above). My guess is that it is the latter, as that is much more typical for Barujari. Another report mentions a 600 meter "river of lava" (in spanish) that ends at Segara Anak lake. The volcano has been erupting all spring with no…
catdynamics | May 29, 2009magnitude 4.7 earthquake in the southwest of Iceland
in Svartsengi, near the Blue Lagoon,
moderately close to Reykjavík
Svartsengifell is part of a row of volcanic craters on the southwest spur of the Atlantic rift.
The area went through intense series of eruptions about 1,000 years ago, which came to a halt in 1227 - research suggests the eruptions cycle with a periodicity of about 1,000 years, so resumption of eruptions is expected on timescale of 1-3 centuries.
historical eruptions in the southwest of Iceland
from ferlir.is - some awesome pictures of the lava formations at the path…
catdynamics | May 20, 2009Xodus.is has a webcam
showing a Sea Eagle nesting in Iceland
very cute. very very cute.
Remember the timezone, and note the camera is occasionally blurred by salt spray.
h/t Iceland Weather Report