2 THE ERUPTION A SAGA COMES TO LIFE Surtur travels from the south with fire The sun will go dark earth will sink into the sea From heaven will vanish bright stars Steam surges and high flames flicker against the very sky Afterward some people would say that they had smelled the strange sulfurous odor for a week or more preceding the eruption In Reykjavík 70 miles away sensing devices that monitor for earthquakes reported a slight tremor in the region weeks before the actual eruption a condition that is not exceptional in Iceland a country noted for its frequent volcanic eruptions In the ocean near the site there had merely been a slight rise in the water’s temperature
All was quiet on the day of the eruption The tiny arctic terns zipped down from the sky skimming the ocean’s surface in search of food Puffins made shallow dives for minnows and elegant gannets and cormorants plunged from high above for endless meals of fish The surface was still but deep under the sea an old story was beginning The crew of the Isleifur had begun to smell the strong sulfurous odor at 6 55 that Tuesday morning Next the boat seemed rocked by a strange movement as if caught in a whirlpool Then in the half light of the dawn the crew noticed something dark and smoking rising out of the sea The time was 7 15 a m Was there a ship on fire They radioed the coast guard but no fires had been reported
Indeed there was a fire one that had been burning almost 400 feet below the surface of the sea for perhaps many days On this Tuesday the fire had reached the surface Water began to sizzle and from a distance what seemed like an immense bouquet of black feathers spurted toward the sky The feathers were topped by a huge cauliflower cloud The dark feathery bouquet and its cauliflower crown were full of steam
cinder ash rock and pumice lightweight volcanic glass that is puffed up by gas All of these airborne products of a volcano are called tephra By eight o’clock in the morning the crew estimated that there were two or three of these feathery columns of tephra each reaching 200 feet high And just two hours later the columns reached a height of 11,500 feet or two miles into the sky The first days of the eruption November 17 through November 19 1963
