BBC, 28 May 2010
On a recent flight from Britain to the United States, my plane took a
circuitous route to avoid the by-now-all-too-familiar volcanic ash, with
the paradoxical result that we flew much nearer to Iceland, and much
nearer to the volcano, than we otherwise would've done. Even when
glimpsed from the safe distance of 30,000 feet, this was "shock and awe"
with a vengeance, reminiscent of the scenes so vividly described in the
letters written by Pliny the Younger to Tacitus when Vesuvius erupted in
AD 79. No wonder the ancient world was so fascinated by volcanoes: the
Greeks thought that eruptions were a sign of divine disapproval; and the
word volcano derives from the small Mediterranean island of Vulcano,
named after Vulcan, who was the Roman god of fire.
Read more:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/magazine/8711942.stm
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