Letter V: Volcano (Jarn’s Journal)

 

Year 10 Day 16

If there was one thing I was not expecting in the middle of all this floating ice, it was a column, no, an enormous cloud of black smoke. At first I wondered what could be burning in this world of ice and water, but as I drew closer, I realized that the ice was piling up along a coastline. It was a clear day for a change, so I went as high as I could and realized that I was looking at a huge island, and that the “smoke” was in fact a violent volcanic eruption.

Eyjafjallajokull, Iceland (Source)

The island wasn’t ice covered, but there were huge glaciers and ice sheets over most of the high ground. The volcano appeared to be erupting through an ice sheet, and I was glad I was not on the surface. Ice and fire is not a comfortable combination. Heat turns the ice to water, and that meant flooding on a massive scale. For the moment, my main concern was staying well out of the plume. I know enough about volcanoes to guess that most of the “smoke” was probably shards of volcanic glass – not the best thing to breathe in! And that plume reached higher into the atmosphere than I could levitate and still have air to breathe.

I’m used to volcanoes; after all, I tap one for hot water and the place I live now is in a rift zone. But this explosion of ice and lava is in a class of its own.

Jarn’s Journal gives the back story of the Jarnian Confederation, in which most of my science fiction is set. The entire Journal to date is on my author site.