Plenty of Nothing

Pele's Hair

Windspun volcanic glass named for the Hawaiian volcano goddess Pele. Source.

Eruption of Mount Bandai

On this date in 1888 Mount Bandai in Fukushima Prefecture erupted, destroying several neighbouring villages and killing about 500 people. This contemporary ukiyoe triptich is by Tankei Inoue. Yasushi Inoue has a short story about it, "Under the Shadow of Mount Bandai", in The Shōwa Anthology.

Mount Iwate

Morioka has a neighbouring volcano, Mount Iwate, with eruptions recorded in 1686, 1731, and 1919. The city is just off the lower left-hand margin of the photo. Source.

Grulla Morioka host Tohoku rivals Akita Blaublitz. Entering today's play Grulla have 5 wins, 3 draws and 5 losses, for 18 points, and a +6 goal difference, good for 6th place. Blaublitz are in 7th with 5 wins, 2 draws and 6 losses, and a -4 goal difference. Machida Zelvia lead the league. Grulla have no foreign players; Blaublitz have Lee Kuen-Ho of South Korea and Leonardo of Brazil. [Grulla win 3 - 0.]

The Scottish Junior Cup final wasn't held last weekend as I thought, it's today. Glenafton versus Hurlford. [Hurlford!]

P. Fannius Synistor's House

The Villa of P. Fannius Synistor stood on the north side of Mount Vesuvius, and was buried in the eruption of AD 79 and not rediscovered until 1900, when its remarkable frescoes were auctioned off and scattered around the world. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, which holds some of the wall paintings, and the King's Visualisation Lab at King's College London, have put together a virtual tour of the house.

This lady is part of a panel from Room H. She looks a trifle unfazed for someone sitting next to a naked guy. Source.

Gerður Sigurðardóttir's House

Iceland is opening a museum to volcanism at Vestmannaeyjar which will incorporate some of the buildings buried by ash in the 1973 eruption, including Gerðisbraut 10, where Gerður Sigurðardóttir's used to live.

ÍBV's midweek league game against Keflavík has been postponed to make way for the Europa League second qualifying round second leg match against Crvena Zvezda, also known as Red Star Belgrade. The first leg ended 2 - 0 in Red Star's favour, so ÍBV need to outscore the Serbs by three goals today to advance to the third qualiying round next week. [0 - 0. Red Star win 0 - 2 on aggregate. ÍBV are out.]

Other Europa League matches involving Icelandic or Scottish clubs:

Hibs 0 - 7 Malmö. Hibs are out.

Standard Liège 3 - 1 KR. KR are out.

St. Johnstone 1 - 1 Rosenborg. St Johnstone advance to the third round. Their opponent will be Minsk.

Sturm Graz 0 - 1 Breiðablik. Breiðablik advance to meet Kazakh side Aktobe in the third round.

On Tuesday in the Champions League Celtic beat Cliftonville 2 - 0 (5 - 0 on aggregate) to advance to the third qualifying round where they will face Elfsborg of Sweden.

FH, the 2012 Icelandic champions, beat Slovakian side Ekranas to advance. FH will face Austria Wien.

The SFL First Division has been renamed the Scottish Championship, though of course the winner of the Scottish Championship will not be Scottish champion.

Cumbre Vieja Tsunami

If the Cumbre Vieja Volcano on the island of La Palma in the Canaries were to slough its western slope into the ocean in an enormous avalanche, as volcanic islands have been known to do, it would set off a tsunami that would devastate the northeastern coast of South America, the Caribbean, and the eastern coast of North America, including Halifax NS. (Read all about it in The Coast.)

Though in the heart of Europe, Geneva Switzerland was swept by a tsunami in the year 563. (Read about it in The Economist.)

Stromboli

Geologists are still debating what it is causes the Italian volcano of Stromboli to erupt every twenty minutes. The answer is, of course, Ingrid Bergman. Douglas

[Postscript:

 

From BibliOdyssey.]

Eyjafjallajökull

Two months late, but here's a little song to help you learn to say Eyjafjallajökull, and here is a discussion specifically about that sound represented by the double l at the end of the name.

Ilha Do Corvo

Ilha do Corvo is the northernmost member of the Azores, the mid-Atlantic archipelago stretching west from Portugal.  It is home to four or five hundred people, some stone windmills, a huge extinct volcano, and, to judge by the name, crows. Corvo and its hydrangea-speckled neighbour Flores are so far out from the European mainland that they actually rest on the North American Plate. Consequently they are edging away from the rest of the country by several millimetres each year.  Already Corvo is a few miles closer to St.John's, Newfoundland, than to Lisbon.