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The Rip in the World
On volcanoes, earthquakes, and our attraction to disaster.
But the eruption site, situated a short drive from the Icelandic capital on the southern Reykjanes peninsula, was more properly understood as one explosive node of a larger volcanic system, called Fagradalsfjall, where there had been three major events in the previous three years. In a fraction of a second, groundwater flooded into the trillions of microscopic pores between each individual grain of dirt, resulting in a free-fall effect that was, according to Allen Hazen, the scientist who first identified the phenomenon in 1920, “practically equivalent to quicksand.” In the aftermath of the quake, the legislature tasked geologists with locating places where the subsoil was most likely to collapse. He shares my first name, which I find exciting, but in truth I am more similar to the bumbling academician whom Jónas hoodwinks, in the novel’s most memorable scene, by convincing him a narwhal tusk is the magical horn of an undiscovered beast.
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