When volcanologists watch eruptions like this, the boundary between awe and horror “is a very narrow edge,” Behncke said.
Some eruptions tip easily over that edge, in one direction or the other. The 1985 eruption of Colombia’s Nevado del Ruiz volcano, for example, triggered mudflows that killed 23,000 and still haunts many volcanologists to this day. “There was nothing beautiful there,” Behncke told me. In contrast, this past March, the first eruption in 800 years on Iceland’s Reykjanes Peninsula was forecast well in advance, fully expected to be nonexplosive and nonthreatening, and seemed likely to be confined to uninhabited valleys. Locals and volcanologists alike greeted it with wonderment, and the baby volcano—which had built itself from scratch from a series of lava-spewing fissures—was soon the backdrop to gigs, wedding proposals, and impromptu lava-fueled cooking; researchers had countless chances to conduct cutting-edge science.
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