Angus Berry

A Historical Comparison: Britain’s Cultural and Social

Responses to Icelandic Volcanoes.

Introduction

On the 14th of April 2010 the Icelandic volcano

Eyjafjallajökull erupted for the second time in a month

and ejected an ash cloud that spread across the European

continent. This grounded flights across the globe and

became one of the most reported environmental events in

recent history. The eruption, however, was relatively

small and its consequences much less severe than those

caused by the Laki volcano eruption in Iceland, 1783. The

Laki eruption killed between 20-25 per cent of Iceland’s

population and has been linked to deaths across the globe

during the late 18th century.1 This essay seeks to

consider the impacts of these two Icelandic volcanic

eruptions and how they have been reported in contemporary

accounts. There will be a focus on cultural environmental

history throughout the essay with the impact that both

eruptions had on British society the key consideration.

1 Jon Stiengrimsson and Keneva Kunz, Fires of the Earth: the Laki eruption, 1783-1784 (Iceland: Nordic Volcanic Institute, 1998)p.5

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People’s responses to both eruptions will be taken from

newspaper reports, diaries and, in relation to the

Eyjafjallajökull incident, Internet sources.

As an area of environmental history, the study of

volcanoes and their impact on people has been somewhat

neglected. Whilst there is an abundance of literature on

the impact of volcanoes on the material environment this

essay will seek to focus on the cultural and personal

impact of volcanic eruptions.2 Many prehistoric Icelandic

volcanoes have been investigated as has their role in

shaping the environment in Britain and Europe today,3 but

more recent eruptions and their impact on people requires

more attention. A comparison will be made in this essay

between the ways in which the two eruptions were reported

and how they better our understanding of the evolving

narrative of environmental history. There will be a dual

narrative throughout the essay concerning the social

response to these eruptions and at the same time

2 James R. Zimbelman and Tracey K.P. Gregg, Environmental Effects on Volcanic Eruptions: From Deep Oceans to Deep Space (New York:Springer, 2000).3 Jelle Zeilinga de Boer and Donald Theodore Sanders, Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012) p.116

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assessing how this neglects the somewhat more damaging

impact that they had on the environment. First, however,

there will be a consideration of the hold that volcanic

eruptions have on the human imagination and why an event

such as Laki or Eyjafjallajökull can be seen with wonder

and appreciated as a natural beauty.

Volcanoes and the human imagination

“It has stranded travellers and crippled the airline industry, and

threatens to deposit a layer of toxic grit over Europe. But on the ground, most

people are just talking about how beautiful it is.”4

This response to the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull expresses both

the logistical and social problems that the eruption

caused whilst simultaneously highlighting the grip that

volcanoes have on the public imagination. The Telegraph

produced an article entitled the ‘art of volcanoes’ in

the aftermath of the 2010 eruption, which tracked the

historical hold on the imagination that volcanic activity

4 ‘Volcano captures global imagination, sparks fear and wonder,’ last modified 23 August 2011, http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/world/volcano-captures-global-imagination-sparks-fear-and-wonder/article4315413/

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has had.5 Further to this Lopes writes that children are

as interested in volcanoes ‘as they are in dinosaurs and

space’.6 This fascination with volcanoes from an early age

transcends into a lasting sense of awe among many people.

Publications and the general public often speak of the

beauty of volcanoes with The National Geographic producing a

series of images of the 2010 Iceland eruption7. The images

captured the dramatic nature of the volcano and played to

the human sense of mystic and drama that eruptions evoke.

YouTube channels have been devoted to ‘volcano chasers’;

people who rush to the site of a volcanic eruption to

experience the effects first hand.8An example of someone

that wants this level of connection with volcanoes is

‘Martin Rietze who spent three sleepless nights huddled

next to a large boulder’ within a few hundred meters of5 “The Art of Volcanoes”, The Telegraph [Online], available at: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/7906109/The-art-of-the-volcano.html (accessed 10 November, 2013).6 Rosaly M. C. Lopes, The Volcano Adventure Guide (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005) p.57 ‘Iceland’s Resilient Beauty,’ last modified 24 April 2010, http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/05/iceland/haarberg-photography#/01-eyjafjallajokull-volcano-lava-670.jpg8 ‘Martin Rietze’ last modified 1 November 2013, http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5LzAA_nyNWEUfpcUFOCpJw

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the Eyjafjallajökull epicentre.9 Whilst modern

communication methods and advancements in photography

have made volcanoes come to life for people around the

world, the fascination with these eruptions is rooted in

history. Both Roman and Greek mythology had a God for

volcanoes thus suggesting that ancient civilizations both

feared and embraced volcanoes as part of their lives. The

Romans worshiped Vulcan in the hope that they would be

saved from the effects of volcanoes, this creates the

notion that these people saw volcanoes as something that

was in the hands of Gods and not a natural occurrence.10

The evolving narrative of volcanic eruptions has taken

away the Godly element, but the sense that they are out

of one’s hands still plays a role in the human

imagination. It is this hold within the human psyche that

volcanoes have which causes the social response to

eruptions that this essay is going to assess.

9 ‘Volcano chasers have a red-hot passion for eruptions,’ last modified 26 March 2010, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-05-27-Volcano_chasers27_ST_N.htm10 Georges Dumezil, Archaic Roman Religion: Volume One, trans. Philip Krapp (Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press) p.320-321.

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The 1783 and 2010 eruptions in British media

It is widely acknowledged that the 1783 eruption of the

Laki fissure in Iceland was one of the most significant

episodes of volcanic activity in the modern era.11 This

section of analysis will explore the cultural and social

impact that this eruption had on Britain, in a time when

global communication was almost non existent, especially

at today’s speed. There will be an investigation into how

the eruption entered in the public lexicon and how this

shaped a social response to a then unknown natural event.

First it is important to recognise the scale of the 1783

Laki eruption and the wide scale impact that it had on

the environment. The eruption brought about the death of

around 25 per cent of the Icelandic human population

whilst also decimating agricultural animals and crops. 79

per cent of sheep, 76 per cent of horses and 50 per cent

of cattle died in the wake of the eruption.12 Furthermore

the ash cloud that the Laki fissure produced caused crop11 John Grattan and Mark Brayshay, “An Amazing and Portentous Summer: Environmental and Social Reponses in Britain to the 1783 Eruption of an Iceland Volcano,” The Geographical Journal 161 (1995): 125.12 A. E. J. Ogilvie, “The Climate of Iceland 1701-1784,” Jokull 36 (1986): 60

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failing across Europe, most profoundly in Britain and

Scandinavia.13 In terms of historical volcanic eruptions

the 1783 explosion places itself amongst the most

devastating. Compared to the 2010 Eyjafjallajökull

eruption, Laki accounted for much more severe physical

damage. It is beyond these environmental impacts that

there has been little attention and it is the impact the

eruption had on society, people and imagination that will

be assessed from now on.

The main source of contemporary accounts and reports on

the ways in which the Laki eruption affected people in

Britain comes from newspapers, personal diaries and

letters. Poet William Cowper observed, “so long in a

country not subjected to fogs, we have been covered with

one of the thickest I remember.14” What this insight

reveals is that without the knowledge of the volcanic

eruption the affects of the following ash cloud from the

Laki explosions created a sense of unknowing within the

13 S. Thorarinnson, “Greeting from Iceland: ash falls and volcanic aerosols in Scandinavia,” Geographical Annul 63A (1981): 11414 J King and C. Ryskamp, The letters and prose writings of William Cowper, Vol. II (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981), 117

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British public. Indeed the media did little to dispel the

sense of panic and in fact provoked further uncertainty.

Whilst today instant communication allows the world to be

informed of volcanic activity, in 1783 Iceland was cut

off from mainland Europe meaning the reasons for an

‘unprecedented spell of extreme weather’ was for some

time unknown.15 Contemporary newspaper accounts speculated

about the link between intense thunderstorms, ‘a

sulphurous stench’ and high temperatures.16 The Sherborne

Mercury reported to its readers on 21 July that:

“The flashes of lightning were remarkably sulphurous, and peals of

thunder loud and awful. It was felt all over Buckinghamshire… and the

lightening fell towards the earth, which rendered its effects more alarming17”

This description is matched by a large amount of other

local and national newspapers during July 1783. It

highlights the alien nature of the atmospheric activity

on the imagination of the public. Whilst newspapers

continued to report thunderstorms and abnormal weather

15 Grattan and Brayshay, “An Amazing and Portentous Summer,” p.12716 Ibid, p.12817 Sherborne Mercury (Sherborne: Dorset), July 21, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

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activities with what has been described as ‘literary

hyperbole’, the hold this creates on the public

imagination serves to suggest that volcanic activity,

whether passively or activity acknowledged, is a

recurring theme in the narrative of public reactions to

Icelandic volcanoes.18 This translates itself in 2010 with

the Eyjafjallajökull eruption and the subsequent media

storm that prevailed. During the immediate aftermath of

the eruption the twitter hashtag ‘#ashtag’ was trending

worldwide,19 whilst newspaper websites such as The

Guardian set up a live blog about the disruption caused

by the volcanic eruption.20 It is clear from this

abundance of activity in social media and within the

traditional media itself that volcanoes and volcanic

activity has an ingrained history in the public

imagination. The continuation of societies’ engagement

with Icelandic volcanoes allows us to suggest that the18 Grattan and Brayshay, “An Amazing and Portentous Summer,” p.13119 ‘Results for #ashtag’, Twitter, 10 November. Available at:https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23ashtag (Accessed: 10 November 2013 16.24)20 ‘Iceland volcano 2010 (Eyjafjallajökull)’, The Guardian, 10 November [Online]. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/iceland-volcano (Accessed 10 November 2013)

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social response to volcanoes is as important as the

material environmental fallout from volcanic activity.

Given that the 1780’s represented a time by which

newspaper circulation had increased significantly, we can

assess the extent to which the public would have been

aware of the events that resulted from the Laki eruption.

As had been discussed there was no knowledge of the Laki

eruption in the immediate aftermath, rather the violent

weather storms and changing atmosphere were the first

public engagement with the eruption. Following an

extensive study of newspaper reports between June and

September 1783 Grattan concludes that there were 183

adjectives used to describe weather events.21 The top

three adjectives used were: violent, tremendous and

dreadful, suggesting that the media were playing somewhat

to the imagination of the public when describing the

affects of the ash cloud on the British ecosystem.22 By

1780 it was estimated that there was at least 11 million

newspaper copies per week in circulation in Britain,

21 Grattan and Brayshay, “An Amazing and Portentous Summer,” table III on p.13122 Ibid, p.132

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which allows us to consider the idea that descriptions of

the weather events in Britain were read by a large

audience.23 This assimilation of ideas through newspapers

caused widespread alarm and panic among the people of

Britain. The Bristol Journal on 19 July 1783 reported

that:

“The inhabitants of this place were alarmed with a most awful

appearance of lightening… exhibiting a wonderful spectacle of dreadful

magnificence… this scene of inconceivable horror continued for near an

hour24.”

This type of report was common among British newspapers

and represents a quintessential response to affects of

the volcanic activity on Britain and the unknown origins

of this phenomenon. The 2010 Eyjafjallajökull eruption,

whilst being in a time of unrivalled communications,

continued to play on people’s imagination as being

otherworldly. Time magazine produced an article and

accompanying photographs titled ‘Otherworldly images from the

eruption at Eyjafjallajökull’. This serves to remind us that, even23 Hannah Barker, Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695-1855 (London: Longman, 2000) p.256 24 Bristol Journal (Bristol, England), July 19, 1783, availableat: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

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in an age of advanced scientific discovery, events such

as volcanic eruptions still evoke feelings of phenomenon

and wonder.25

Laki and Eyjafjallajökull’s impact on society and social

practices

The media attention given to the 2010 eruption was less

focused on the weather that it caused but more fixed on

the disruption that it caused to air travel - an effect

of volcanic activity that was relatively new in the

history of social responses to volcanoes. Some 313

airports were closed ‘or around 80% of the European

aviation network’, the level of disruption this caused

was more than that which followed the 9/11 terrorist

attacks.26 ‘100,000 flights were cancelled and around

10,000,000 passengers were stranded, and airlines’

25 “The Eerie Beauty of Iceland’s Volcano: Otherworldly images from the eruption at Eyjafjallajökull.” Time, November 2010, accessed November 10, 2013. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1982747,00.html 26 K. A. Lund and K. Benediktsson, “Inhabiting a risky earth: The Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 and its impacts.” Anthropology Today 27 (2011): 7, accessed November 2, 2013, doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2011.00781.x

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financial losses reached around US$2 billion.’27 These

wide spread consequences go someway to represent the vast

impact that volcanic activity can have on society. It

also raises the wider issue of the way in which people

use the environment around them. The Eyjafjallajökull

eruption impacted in the heart of a modern post-

industrial world and ‘disrupted its slick yet fragile

order.’28 The culture of instant travel and mobility was

at particular risk from a natural event. The way society

engages with nature has changed and as systems are put

into place to avoid the travel disruption of 2010 we can

be seen to be replacing one risk (that of the natural

environment) with another (society’s demand to overcome

natural disasters). This poses the question of whether we

are, in a time of instant gratification and mobility,

putting society and people at risk by taking the natural

world for granted? As Latour articulates ‘suddenly under

crisis you realise that all along you have been

inhabiting the earth.’29 This emphasises the point that27 Ibid, p.8 28 Ibid, p.929 B. Latour, “A plea for earthly sciences” (paper presented at the British Sociological Association, East London, April 2007).

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the cultural interactions with volcanic eruptions have

somewhat superseded the environmental concerns that arise

from volcanic activity.

Whilst the 1783 Laki eruption came too early to bring

down flights, the impact that it had on agriculture and

the enduring image it left on the people of Britain

represents a level of continuity in the social affects

that these two Icelandic volcanoes had. Whilst the

origins of the affects of the volcanic ash cloud were at

the time unknown, it still resulted in an articulation of

social responses to extreme weather. Newspaper accounts

often alluded to God’s divine judgement or a supernatural

aspect being behind the violent storms and strange

weather. The Exeter Flying Post reported that:

‘The women, shrieking and crying, were running to hide themselves,

the common fellows fell down on their knees to prayers… the Final Day of

Judgement had come30’

Poet William Cowper directly referenced the idea of the

common folk supporting a narrative of superstition and

30 Exeter Flying Post (Exeter: Devon), August 14, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

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divine judgement as the cause of the extreme weather.

Cowper wrote that some ‘assert with great confidence that

the day of Judgement is at hand,’ the religious overtones

in both Cowper’s writing and in the media are clear.31

They represent the consuming power that volcanic activity

has on the public. The saturation of reports on the

strange weather within the media following the 1783

eruption draws parallels with the media coverage of the

2010 eruption. Volcanoes and their affects have a hold on

the public and the impact that they have on society, from

a sense of unknowing and destruction of crops to grounded

flights and stranded holiday makers, suggests that

Icelandic eruptions have an impact on the cultural

narrative of Britain’s interaction with nature. Whilst

both the Laki and Eyjafjallajökull eruptions have had

material consequences on the environment of Britain,

through an analysis of media coverage and the direct

impact on society of both eruptions, it is clear that the

cultural impact of volcanic activity is more far reaching

and relevant to the people of Britain.

31 King and Ryskamp, The letters of William Cowper, p. 175

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Icelandic volcanoes in popular culture

In this final section of analysis there will be a

consideration of how British society has, over time, used

the effects and images of Laki and Eyjafjallajökull to

provoke the imagination. Poets and influential writers of

the late 18th century have provided us with some of the

key descriptions of the effects of the Laki eruption.

Their eloquent and detailed descriptions of the violent

storms and extreme weather, whilst in a different form,

draw similarities with the photography of the 21st

century. The National Geographic (See appendix 1) feature on

the beauty of Eyjafjallajökull,32 along with The

Guardian’s eyewitness (See appendix 2) spread on the 2010

eruption highlights the way in which humans have

historically engaged with volcanic activity.33 It also

serves to make the larger point that humans have long

engaged with nature and environment with a sense of awe

32 ‘Iceland’s Resilient Beauty’33 “Eyewitness: Ice on Fire,” The Guardian, April 16, 2010, accessed November 6, 2013, http://www.theguardian.com/world/picture/2010/apr/16/iceland-volcano-pictures-guardian-eyewitness

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and unknowing. The words of English naturalist Gilbert

White express the engagement with the human imagination

that the effects of Laki had on Britain:

‘It was a most extraordinary appearance, unlike anything known

within the memory of man34’

When you couple this eloquent description with artists’

attempts to draw the Laki (See appendix 3) eruption,

there becomes an understanding that the beauty and danger

of volcanoes is something that society has tried to

capture throughout history.35 By tracing the historical

origins of this we can recall the interaction of ancient

Roman and Greek societies with volcanoes and natural

disasters. Their worship of volcanic Gods reiterates the

notion that humans appreciate the aesthetic beauty of

volcanic eruption but also fear the impacts that they can

have. The documentary series Life on Fire showcased human

interaction with volcanoes.36 The Laki eruptions features

34 G White, The natural history of Selbourne (London: Penguin, Reprinted in 1977), p.37.35 Alexandra Witze, “Laki: the forgotten volcano”, AlexandraWitze wordpress, 6 July, 2013, available at http://alexandrawitze.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/laki-the-forgotten-volcano/, accessed 10 November, 2013. 36 Life on Fire (2013) PBS, January 2, 2013.

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as an example of how a natural event can be experienced

without knowledge of the event and appreciated as a force

that people are powerless to stop. The final part of the

documentary series questions the fragile nature of post-

modern society much in the same way that Lund does.37

Whilst artists, poets and photographers can revere

volcanic activity and its impacts on society, there are

already attempts to conquer the effects of Icelandic

volcanoes; this is shown, again by Lund, who argues that

procedures are already in place to stop the impacts of

volcanic ash clouds on European societies.38For example,

new technologies being implemented on aircraft, which

allows planes to fly through airspace that has been

affected by ash clouds from volcanic eruptions.39

It is important to note that not all descriptions of the

effects of Laki were positive or eluding to the majestic

nature of the volcano. The Edinburgh Advertiser produced

a harrowing account of the death of two children as a

37 Lund and Benediktsson, “Inhabiting a risky earth,” p.9 38 Ibid, p.939 BBC News, Richard Lister, “Flying through ash clouds,” last modified December 8, 2011, http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16077139, accessed 10 November 2013.

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result of the violent weather caused by the Laki ash

cloud:

‘The girl’s whole body remained soft for fours hours, though none of

her bones were broken… A gardener tried to bleed the boy, but without effect.

Their whole bodies soon grew black40’

This account serves to raise the physical impact of the

1783 eruption and how this was translated to the general

public. The reporting of these deaths highlights the role

that society plays in the interaction with natural

disasters. Through the use of media the effects and

impact of the Laki eruption were spread across Britain

and in doing so served to raise public awareness of

dangers of volcanic activity. This interaction between

nature and culture is a chronic theme in environmental

history and in particular volcanic history.

Conclusion

There exists a recurring theme throughout environmental

history that humans want a managed wilderness or a

created environment. William Cronon raises this idea

40 Edinburgh Advertiser (Edinburgh, Scotland), July 15, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

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that, for society, nature is something that needs to be

tamed.41 Even when people experience what they consider to

be the wild or true nature they are in fact getting a

created or managed experience. In terms of Icelandic

volcanoes this translates itself into the idea that for

every one photograph that is produced, highlighting the

beauty of Eyjafjallajökull, there will be someone trying

to put in place measures to stop the effects of an ash

cloud. This dichotomy directly expresses the role that

society plays in the environment and the impact that

people have had throughout history on the natural world.

What also becomes clear is that despite the devastation

and disruption that volcanoes can cause, there is an

enduring appreciation of the beauty and affects of that

volcanic activity: from the Laki eruption in 1783

prompting poets and naturalists to produce pieces of

writing that speak of the beauty and wonder, to 2010,

when magazines and newspapers celebrated the spectacle of

the eruption in photographs. It is perhaps the untameable

nature of volcanoes that has created a narrative41 William Cronon, “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature,” Environmental History 1 (1996): 8.

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throughout history that has seen a cultural appreciation

of volcanic activity. This analysis of two Icelandic

volcanoes and their impact on a society far away from the

source of eruption has provided the evidence that social

interaction with volcanoes is a vital element to our

understanding of how people interact with nature. Whilst

there is a saturation of literature on the material

environmental impacts of volcanic eruptions, often in the

words of ecologists and geographers, there is now an

awakening, an understanding that volcanoes and people

have a prominent role in the narrative of environmental

history. What has been shown is that throughout history,

here focused on Icelandic volcanoes in 1783 and 2010,

there has been an engagement with nature that has

filtered into society, dominating the media, the public

imagination and now the writings of historians. My

conclusion is that whilst volcanic activity plays a major

role in the material environment, the impact its has on

society is just as important, and for the people

themselves their engagement with nature has a lasting

impact on the way they lead their lives.

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Appendix

1) Iceland Resilient Beauty – National Geographic

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2) Eyewitness – Ice on Fire – The Guardian

3) Alexandra Witze – Laki fire fountains

Bibliography

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Primary Sources

Newspapers

Bristol Journal (Bristol, England), July 19, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers. Edinburgh Advertiser (Edinburgh, Scotland), July 15, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

Exeter Flying Post (Exeter: Devon), August 14, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

‘Iceland volcano 2010 (Eyjafjallajökull)’, The Guardian, 10 November [Online]. Available at: http://www.theguardian.com/world/iceland-volcano (Accessed 10 November 2013)

Sherborne Mercury (Sherborne: Dorset), July 21, 1783, available at: 17th and 18th Century British Library Newspapers.

Personal Accounts

King J. and Ryskamp, C. The letters and prose writings of William Cowper, Vol. II. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1981.

White, G. The natural history of Selbourne. London: Penguin, Reprinted in 1977.

News Websites and Social Media

BBC News, Richard Lister, “Flying through ash clouds.” Last modified December 8, 2011. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16077139. Accessed 10 November 2013.

‘Results for #ashtag’. Twitter. 10 November. Available at: https://twitter.com/search?src=typd&q=%23ashtag. Accessed: 10 November 2013 16.24.

Secondary Sources

Books

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Barker, Hannah. Newspapers, Politics and English Society, 1695-1855. London: Longman, 2000.

Dumezil, Georges. Archaic Roman Religion: Volume One. Translated by Philip Krapp. Baltimore: John Hopkins University Press.

Lopes, Rosaly M.C. The Volcano Adventure Guide. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005.

Mauch, Christof and Pfister, Christian. Natural Disasters, Cultural Responses: Case Studies Toward A Global Environmental History. Plymouth, UK: Lexington Books, 2009.

Stiengrimsson, Jon and Kunz, Keneva. Fires of the Earth: the Laki eruption, 1783-1784. Iceland: Nordic Volcanic Institute, 1998.

Zeilinga de Boer, Jelle and Sanders, Donald Theodore. Volcanoes in Human History: The Far-Reaching Effects of Major Eruptions. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2012.

Zimbelman, James R. and Gregg, Tracey K.P. Environmental Effects on Volcanic Eruptions: From Deep Oceans to Deep Space. New York: Springer, 2000.

Journal Articles

Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness: Or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” Environmental History 1 (1996): 7-28.

Grattan, John and Brayshay, Mark. “An Amazing and Portentous Summer: Environmental and Social Reponses in Britain to the 1783 Eruption of an Iceland Volcano.” The Geographical Journal 161 (1995): 125-134

Lund K.A. and Benediktsson, K. “Inhabiting a risky earth:The Eyjafjallajökull eruption in 2010 and its impacts.” Anthropology Today 27 (2011): 6-9. Accessed November 2, 2013. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-8322.2011.00781.x

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Ogilvie, A.E.J. “The Climate of Iceland 1701-1784.” Jokull 36 (1986): 57-73

Thorarinnson, S. “Greeting from Iceland: ash falls and volcanic aerosols in Scandinavia.” Geographical Annul 63A (1981): 109-118

Paper Presented at Conference

Latour, B. “A plea for earthly sciences.” Paper presentedat the British Sociological Association, East London, April 2007.

Websites

“The Art of Volcanoes”. The Telegraph [Online]. Availableat: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/picturegalleries/7906109/The-art-of-the-volcano.html. Accessed 10 November, 2013.

“The Eerie Beauty of Iceland’s Volcano: Otherworldly images from the eruption at Eyjafjallajökull.” Time, November 2010. Accessed November 10, 2013. http://content.time.com/time/photogallery/0,29307,1982747,00.html

“Eyewitness: Ice on Fire.” The Guardian. April 16, 2010. Accessed November 6, 2013. http://www.theguardian.com/world/picture/2010/apr/16/iceland-volcano-pictures-guardian-eyewitness.‘Iceland’s Resilient Beauty.’ Last modified 24 April 2010. http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/05/iceland/haarberg-photography#/01-eyjafjallajokull-volcano-lava-670.jpg

USA today. ‘Volcano chasers have a red-hot passion for eruptions.’ Last modified 26 March 2010, http://usatoday30.usatoday.com/tech/science/2010-05-27-Volcano_chasers27_ST_N.htm

Blogs

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Witze, Alexandra. “Laki: the forgotten volcano.” Alexandra Witze wordpress. 6 July, 2013. Available at http://alexandrawitze.wordpress.com/2013/06/07/laki-the-forgotten-volcano/. Accessed 10 November, 2013.

Youtube Channels

‘Martin Rietze.’ Last modified 1 November 2013. http://www.youtube.com/channel/UC5LzAA_nyNWEUfpcUFOCpJw

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