Finally got them potholes filled.
this post was submitted on 18 Jun 2024
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that's iceland. they don't have potholes, because none of their streets get very old, see exhibit A
Boss, you'll never guess why I can't make it today.
A bunch of my co-workers are situated in Iceland and, you joke, but they have had to leave the office twice because of risk of lava in about a year.
Which seems like a startlingly high number
In Iceland it's a commonly accepted reason to stay home. Volcano-leave, we call it.
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"When I was your age I had to walk to school through 5kms of lava, just to avoid fighting with bears again, it was actually faster if I ran" just kidding I know we don't have money to raise children anymore
I like the way there's a police car there, in case people were thinking they might just go for it anyway
Imagine this would happen in the US! The police would have shot the lava!
EDIT: For the Downvoters: Of course they would have shot the lava. Have you seen it? Its black!
You clearly don't know people
Today, someone jumped over the construction barriers on an escalator that was under construction. They fell into the open hole in the escalator, got seriously hurt, and then had the audacity to complain to metro police officers that there was a hole in the escalator for some reason. The police had the grace to not admonish him for being a moron. Both ends were blocked with construction barriers ~4.5 feet high by 3.5 feet deep, and the elevator was right by them, lol. It was very difficult for someone to even vault over in the first place.
"It's rock, right?"
Wow, it's sure smells bad out here. Is anyone >yawn< else getting sleepy?
I mean, my first thought was "i wonder if you could drive across that." But I'm also smart enough to not be the first person to try... maybe the second though
Is this normal in Iceland? What's the current situation there?
Edit: Found Details link
It happens. Times past they’ve used buckets of seawater to save villages from encroaching lava. Icelanders are built different.
Well back in the 1990s, Tommy Lee Jones and the LAFD used jersey barriers, fire trucks, and knocked a building over to stop a lava flow from demolishing the west side of Los Angeles, so I'd say we're pretty impressive too.
Fun fact, in California where the action described takes place, they are officially called k-rails, not jersey barriers. Had to double check wiki to confirm CA predated NJ where I learned about Ontario Tall Wall, which was mentioned but described so...
To anyone acquantinced with Iceland: What kind of logistical issues does this actually provoke? What measures do you typically (or exceptionally) take to make sure that no location runs unsupplied for too long?
Basically everyone gets evacuated from the affected area and are staying with friends and family in Reykjavík. Grindavík is a very small town compared to the rest of the world. The government has offered to buy properties from the ones who cannot return, since the erruptions have been going for a few years in that area and there's no sign of stopping.
To answer your question for the rescuers, researchers, and workers left in the area, once the eruption starts it's quite easy to predict the flow. Luckily there are a few other roads without the risk of lava flow, mainly due to lava diverting barricades. In case of emergencies they use helicopters.
Other parts in eruption risk zones would be similar, since it's just not worth it for people to stay in those areas and most people can stay with family. And repairs to the road are usually pretty quick when the eruption dies down.
Not Icelandic, but I've been following the situation closely.
This is an evolving issue. Grindavik, the town on the far side of this has been severely damaged by earthquakes and is currently surrounded by a berm that's (mostly) holding the lava flow back. The Svartsengi power plant is likewise protected by a berm and has had the pipes supplying hot water to Reikiavik damaged and repaired.
Geologist Sean Willsey has been providing outstanding coverage on the subject.
I’ve been there on tour once, and I just looked at an online map to make sure I didn’t misremember. I also follow a guy on YouTube that talks about geology and has been focused on Iceland lately, so I think that makes me a complete expert.
Joking aside, the road to Grindavik is sort of out of the way, but it is the connector road between the south coast and the airport, so it’s like a 45 minute diversion to get to the airport from the south coast (and vice versa). And like an hour+ diversion if you’re going from the south coast to the Blue Lagoon/the geothermal power/hot water plant that provides power and heat to the airport and (I think) most of Reykjavik.
Unfortunately the power plant/Blue Lagoon is very close to the fissure, and it’s possible a future larger lava flow could damage them. (It is expected more fissures/flows will occur, but the location and size are unknown.) I’m sure both the civil engineering and tourism folks are working on spinning up alternative sites.
Grindavik, for what it’s worth, keeps bouncing between being evacuated and residents griping so much they get let back in. The Icelandic government has an offer on the table to purchase people’s homes in the town, so they move out. I think the plan is probably to abandon the town, since it’s possible this eruptive period could last hundreds of years. (Or not! We have no idea, really, just past data and informed guesses.)
I'm guessing driving the other way around would help and boats. But I'm not an expert.
The ring road around the country is about 1300km, so it's clearly a pretty big hassle, but not a complete disaster, unless the entire area around the main intersection is blocked.
I don't think you have travel the whole ring road. But I believe both roads in and out areclosed.
Yep, they're not getting that back.
Mother nature is scary AF
Do you dig it out or just go over top with new road it's gotta be pretty effed up underneath all that, before chiseling through it and clearing it off, and where do you go with the slag if you do dig it out? Do you treat it like snow?
They did that in Hawaii decades ago when Kīlauea covered Chain of Craters road and others.
Kīlauea said “Fuck that” and covered the roads again and again, along with entire neighborhoods. The Hawaiians just let it all go back to nature now. You can drive roughly 10 miles of Chain of Craters Road now, which is in Volcanoes National Park, until it ends very much like the road in this picture.
Speaking of Kīlauea, you might be interested in reading about Jacks Lava House which survived for years as the entire neighborhood around it was reclaimed by the volcano. It was eventually reclaimed by Kīlauea as well about a decade ago.
Bro that's the new Iceland, anything underneath has been Pompeii'd
Just paint a yellow line and call it a day.
On that note of a million questions, the soil looks pretty soily; How long would it take that new lava rock to become as soily on top?
In Iceland it’s pretty cold a lot of the year - not insanely, but colder than a lot of plants prefer. So the rock to soil conversion happens via moss.
While on tour there last year, our guide pointed out the ages of certain lava fields, and he noted that the existing lava fields around Grindavik were between 700 and 1300 years old. My photos from the area show that they’re about 60-70% rock, with moss covering the rest. I suspect if you scraped away the moss, you’ll find slightly crumbly rock underneath (But don’t do that - do not mess with the moss in iceland). I’m not sure how long it takes for the lava to be converted into soil, but I would guess it’s more on the scale of multiple thousands of years.
This page (up until the waterfall) has some good photos of a few lava fields and gives dates for the eruptions that created them. Meandering Wild - Lava and Moss
(The photos are at the bottom of each blurb, not the top - so Eldhraun is the one with the rounded rocks and moss at 350 years old, and not the black rocks, and Dimmuborgir, at 2300 years old, is the one with the treetops shown below the craggy rocks.)
Another banger from our tour guide was that (according to him) the locals say if you get lost in an Icelandic forest, just stand up. Which is… sorta true. They only tree of real quantity there is birch, and the tallest birch I saw was about 16ish feet (5ish meters). They do not grow heavily, so they’re a bit comedic and stringy. Decades old stands of them sort of look like 1-2 year old stands planted in warmer climates - without any ground cover, of course, because while grass will grow, the usual complement of weeds, vines, and what-not does not.
Tone-deaf bosses be like, "actually we have a return to office mandate.. We're gonna need a note from your doctor."
"I don't understand why turnover is so high. Ever since COVID people just don't have any work ethic. The lockdowns really destroyed our economy in irreparable ways. Wait no, don't quit."
The "people don't want to work anymore" rallying cry has always confused me. Who ever wanted to work in the first place?
That's always been my response when manager and owner use that whole "nobody wants to work anymore," thing because they can't get people to take offers for six bucks a year.
Every single time I hear that, I say out loud, "Well I certainly don't want to work. Who in their right mind does? That's why we get paid to do it."
McDonalds in NYS is $20 an hour and they struggle to fill the jobs. Just saying.
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