Earthquakes and volcanoes make their mark in Iceland

SELFOSS, Iceland— Smack in the middle of this small Nordic town, cracks and severs along the ground release white clouds of steam—a reminder that three earthquakes in the past decade have cost the town more than $40 million dollars.

Hordur Balduinsson, manager of the Selfoss civil protection plan, which oversees the town’s urban development, recently held up a two-liter soda bottle that sits behind his office desk, filled with unappetizing, murky water. “This is what we are dealing with,” he said, describing the most difficult challenge left behind after the 2008 earthquake. Damages to water and sewage pipes under the roads of Selfoss can no longer hide their need for costly repairs.

Residents here in southwest Iceland are still cleaning up damages left behind from that earthquake, 6.2 in magnitude. Its epicenter, according to the U.S. Geological Survey, hit outside of town, just 30 miles east of the capital Reykjavik.

Bursting lava and shaking ground along the volatile underwater Mid-Atlantic Ridge formed Iceland and its moon like terrain millions of years ago. But today similar volcanoes and earthquakes are recurring at a faster and faster pace, every four to seven years. Now science suggests that the next might be sooner and stronger.

A report published by Science First magazine last October believes there may be worrying signs that point to large-scale changes and a high sensitivity around the globe. In Greenland, Iceland’s close neighbor to the west, recent acceleration in melting of the ice sheet means it is possible that sea levels will rise by several meters over the next few centuries, according to the report. This would match the fastest rates of the immediate post-glacial period, and may be the recipe for a fiery and shaky future, as well as a warm one.

Water rising, causing increase in quakes

A similar 2001 study conducted by the Intergovernmental Panel Climate Change estimated a rise in sea level of up to 35 inches by the end of the century and that smaller fluctuations in water load have been known to trigger earthquakes.

Residents have persevered through the troubles, picking up the broken pieces and seemingly not worrying about the next earthquake or volcano to come, even as they bring with them new costs and dangers before the previous ones have even been settled. Over the past century, Iceland has seen uncountable numbers of earthquakes all around the island nation.

The Iceland Meteorological Office can sometimes record more than 20 low magnitude quakes per day.

A few homes in Selfoss still sit empty or vibrate with the rumble of construction work. Authorities pronounced between 10 and 20 homes unsafe because of cracked walls and broken windows. One home was completely demolished because the foundation was so badly damaged.

As workers find hidden problems months later in sewage pipes and drains they realize that, the problems have only been compounding over time. “If we had seen the problems in pipes right away they would have been easy to fix,” Balduinsson says, “but left over time the cracks and breaks grew worse and will take more effort now to repairs.”

The last significant quakes to hit the southwestern area before May 29, 2008 were two quakes measuring 6.5 and 6.1 that struck in 2000. The two earthquakes reportedly caused a combined $24 million in damages.

City straddles fault

Selfoss and its surrounding area are so prone to earthquakes because it sits atop the South Iceland Seismic Zone, an east-west trending zone. Icelandic quakes coincide with Iceland’s massive glaciers that cover 11 percent of the island’s surface, causing melting and flooding.

Jeanne Sauber, who works in the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s planetary geodynamics laboratory in Greenbelt, MD, has found similarities between faults covered by glaciers southeast Iceland and a 7.2 magnitude earthquake that struck in Northern Alaska in 1979. “In areas like Iceland, where earthquakes occur and glaciers are changing, their relationship must be considered to better assess earthquake hazard,” says Sauber. “This has implications for all those parts of the world where glaciers and active faults coincide.”

This includes the rocky grounds of Iceland, Greenland, Alaska and others.

Although global warming critics dismiss any connection between climate change and extreme events such as earthquakes and volcanoes, evidence is mounting.

Water and ice exerts considerable, but drastically different, amounts of pressure on the Earth’s crust: 3.2 cubic feet of water weighs 1 ton, while the same volume of ice weighs slightly less, up to 0.9 tons. The loading and unloading of the Earth’s crust by ice or water can trigger seismic and volcanic activity and even landslides.

 Dumping the weight of a half mile-thick ice sheet onto a continent or removing a deep column of water from the ocean floor will inevitably affect the stresses and strains on the underlying rock.

Water level changes triggered ice ages before

Scientists believe these massive weight changes have occurred several times throughout Earth’s history and the evidence suggest that is starting to happen again. At the end of the last ice age, about 9600 B.C., the extra load was more than enough to reactivate faults and trigger earthquakes around the rims of all the major ocean basins, some of which are thought to have set off giant landslides on the sea floor.

Evidence of 27 such slides has been uncovered in the North Atlantic basin in which Iceland is included.

Because the monetary costs of these types of disasters are so consuming, let alone the emotional costs, Iceland’s government has taken steps to help in relief.

After a Westermann Isles volcanic on January 23, 1973 forced 5,000 people to evacuate, a relief fund was started in hopes of helping future victims, the ultimate rainy day fund.

Just outside of Selfoss, a horse farm sits just below the mountain where geologists believe the epicenter of last May’s earthquake hit. “These cracks are all new, they’ve only come in the past few months,” Helga Das Hattdanardottir waves her loosely held cigarette while pointing out cracks that line the foundation of her barn. “I came back to the horses everywhere, pens fell apart and opened, parts of walls were on the ground, I didn’t know where to start,”

Hattdanardottir describes her home as she found it after the initial and most jolting shock of the earthquake. Like many others, she plans to turn her damage claims over to insurance so she receives her reimbursement from the disaster fund. She worries it may not cover problems that spring up later. “If more cracks or holes form in the barn,” says Stefanie, “it may become unsafe for the horses and I won’t have the money for repairs. I would rather wait longer to see if more come before going to the insurance company.”

The relief fund has done much to help many but sometimes the damages left in the wake of some disasters are ones not healed by money.

Relief fund can't mend some injuries

Almar Sigurðsson, who works at the geothermal power station, Hellisheiðarvirkjun, just 20 miles outside of Reykjavik, remembers the worry he felt when he got the call that his 14 year-old daughter, Stefania, had been injured during the May earthquake. “We were lucky it wasn’t much worse,” says Sigurðsson, who considers a broken arm minor compared to other injuries his daughter could have sustained.

“Pans were shaking and falling,” Sigurðsson said. “As she lost her balance she reached out, pulling the pot over and on to herself.” Luckily it wasn’t filled that day with its usual boiling hot doughnut oil.

Ultimately the amount of destruction seen in Iceland will depend on the scale of the environmental changes caused by global warming and how sensitive our planet’s crust is to these.

The Selfoss public library still bears minor cracks on the exterior of the building, from last May, which constitutes a major success in a land prone to earthquakes. A test support put in place after the 2000 earthquakes hit proved to be a success when they supported the frame of the building in 2008.

In the center of the large kitchen at a home for elderly and handicapped in another part of town, floors are still slick with saw dust. The building was condemned last May when a wall collapsed and an entire room was severed from the rest of the home by a 12-inch wide crack.

Radisson says that the same brace used in the library has been incorporated in this homes new structure based on its proven success.

Icelanders stoic

Icelanders, faced with increased activity in past years, stood strong to prove their ability to cope with less than ideal situations.

Reykjahlio, a northern town near the popular tourist destination Lake Mývatn, experienced seven straight years of volcanic eruptions from 1975 to 1982. “Everyday we waited, watched and planned,” says Jón Illugason, former mayor of Reykjahlio, the stress from years along side an active volcano show in the deep, smooth lines of his face, similar to those in the ground. “I was in awe of how the land and crater changed over such a short period of time."

An unnatural mound rolls across the red, iron rich soil below the crater hovering over Lake Mývatn. It is a container wall that Illugason himself helped to build during the turbulent years. Illugason’s dirt mound, as primitive as it may seem, succeeded in its mission.

Today structural and civil engineers work to develop more modern and contemporary preventative measures.

Illugason of Reykjahlio, Balduinsson of Selfoss and others like them, casually shrug off any sense of worry. “Why should I worry?” Balduinsson says with a grin and shrugged shoulder. “It keeps me busy,” he joked.

Illugason says, “There is nothing you can do about it . . . If they are going to erupt there is nothing I can do to stop them.”

Icelanders seem to tough through the troubles left behind by earthquakes, floods, volcanoes and whatever else their island manages to throw their way. And more amazingly they do it with a casual grace.

Their attitude is reminiscent of the wool sweaters they famously make, comfortable and casual but tough enough to withstand some of the worst conditions and always ready for more.

“Why would I leave?” Illugason asks. “This is all just part of the place I love.”