In March 2012, I visited Iceland with my team from work and for our activity day we went to the Blue Lagoon for a swim. It was March and, as illustrated by the photos above, snow blanketed the ground, and it was freezing! The water was lovely and warm, and you’d be fine as long as you kept as much of your body in the water as possible!
I’m revisiting this trip today because of the concerning news from Iceland. There have been numerous earthquakes, and magma is building up, only 800m underground and very close to the Blue Lagoon and the Svartsengi Geothermal Power Plant. The ground has risen by 8cm because the magma is pushing it up. The nearby town of Grindavik has been evacuated as a fissure runs through it. Earthquakes have already caused serious structural damage to buildings there.
Data shows the “magma tunnel is significant, and it is approaching the surface” according to this video. The tunnel is about 15km long. It seems likely there will be an eruption very soon.
Edit on December 19th: it finally erupted. You can see it on this live cam. This video shows the vantage point from a helicopter. The erupting fissure is 3.5km long!
| Aperture | ƒ/9 |
| Camera | Canon EOS 40D |
| Focal length | 18mm |
| ISO | 100 |
| Shutter speed | 1/200s |
