Volcano Katla

Mýrdalsjökull is a glacier in the south of Iceland. It is situated to the north of Vík í Mýrdal and to the east of the smaller glacier Eyjafjallajökull. Its peak reaches 1493 m in height and in 1980 it covered an area of 595 km². The view from here on a clear day is one of the prettiest in the world.

Guided snow scooter, snowmobile, superjeep, dog sledding and iceclimbing tours are offered on the Myrdalsjökull glacier. Travelers on the glacier have to be extremely careful about crevasses and inexperienced travelers should not go there alone. Weather conditions shift very rapidly here and high winds and snowstorms can appear in a flash all year round.

The volcano Katla, in the Mýrdalsjökull glacier, has erupted on average every 40 - 60 years. Sixteen eruptions have been recorded since the settlement of Iceland, the last in 1918, but there have probably been more, perhaps 20 in all. Katla is one of the most famous volcanoes in the country, and its eruptions usually have very serious consequences. It can actually be regarded as one of the most powerful volcanoes in the world.

The glacier above the volcanic vent melts and the melt-water collects under the ice-cap until it makes its way out under the edge in a violent flood. These are called "Jokulhlaup". Huge amounts of ice and sand carried along by the floodwater, and anything in the path of the flood-tide is destroyed. Most of the Mýrdalssandur sand plain has been formed by deposits in past floods. At the peak of the 1755 eruption the flood discharge has been estimated between 200000-400000m³/s, for comparison the combined average discharge of the Amazon, Mississippi, Nile, and Yangtze is about 290000m³/s!

Katla has been showing signs of unrest recently and Geologist suspect that it might erupt in the near future, since it is way overdue to erupt. Were the eruption to take place on the western side of the (which has happened before), it would have catastrophic consequences for the Thorsmörk, Fljotshlid and Landeyjar areas. Evacuation plans have been set up in case of new eruptions, which are inevitable to take place one day, and one estimates that the evacuation time from the time of eruption to serious flooding is between 2 to 4 hours.

Eruptions of Katla have taken place (since known and recognized human settlement): 1918, 1860, 1823, 1755-56, 1721, 1660-61, 1625, 1612, 1580, 1416, 1357, 1311, 1262, 1245, 1177, 950