The tremors we felt were minor but ominous. On November 9, the Icelandic Meteorological Office registered roughly 1,400 earthquakes, including a 4.8 magnitude one in the southern peninsula area, near the famed Blue Lagoon. The quakes had been triggered by an increasing uptick in movement of the magma under the surface in the area.
Soon, the resort announced a temporary shutdown, the nation had declared a state of emergency, and on November 10, the town of Grindavik was issued an evacuation order. That evening, in Reykjavik, my group of friends and I had been settling in to our hotel when a flurry of activity began, little rumbles that caused the door of my room's mini safe to swing slowly open. For the past few days, we'd been walking on black beaches formed by lava, driving past enormous craters left by dormant volcanos. But Iceland's unique geological profile is never a thing of the past.
