A reporter for Channel 2 News recently noticed bundles of what looked like hair, tumbling along the ground near the Holuhraun eruption site. Hairbundles identical to these were also recorded to have been seen during the Dyngjusandur eruption in 1783.
These little wads of hair are called “Nornahár” in Icelandic, meaning Witch’s Hair, and are in fact volcanic glass threads formed when small particles of molten material are flung with great force up into the air where they are spun by the wind into these long hair-like strands. The phenomenon is known as Pele’s hair in English, derived from the Haiwaiian goddess of Volcanoes, Pele.
The strands of “hair” are generally golden or brown in colour and are found downwind from active eruption sites.
Here is a video of the eerie phenomenon tumbling along the Holuhraun lava flow.
A reporter for Channel 2 News recently noticed bundles of what looked like hair, tumbling along the ground near the Holuhraun eruption site. Hairbundles identical to these were also recorded to have been seen during the Dyngjusandur eruption in 1783.
These little wads of hair are called “Nornahár” in Icelandic, meaning Witch’s Hair, and are in fact volcanic glass threads formed when small particles of molten material are flung with great force up into the air where they are spun by the wind into these long hair-like strands. The phenomenon is known as Pele’s hair in English, derived from the Haiwaiian goddess of Volcanoes, Pele.
The strands of “hair” are generally golden or brown in colour and are found downwind from active eruption sites.
Here is a video of the eerie phenomenon tumbling along the Holuhraun lava flow.
