The harbor on the island of Heimaey is seen here in 1974, in the aftermath of an eruption that produced a lava flow that almost blocked the harbor entrance. The flow, which originated from a fissure extending from Eldfell cinder cone (upper right) forms the peninsula at the upper left. Extensive water pumping efforts were undertaken to cool and stop the advance of the flow; the diversion attempts were locally successful. The flow eventually stopped, after extending the shoreline up to 1.1 km over a 2.7-km-wide area, providing a more sheltered harbor.

Photo by Robin Holcomb, 1974 (courtesy of Jack Lockwood, U.S. Geological Survey).

This image is made available under the Creative Commons BY-NC 4.0 license terms.

Galleries: Human Impacts

Keywords: lava flow | human impacts

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