Lake Laach

Volcanic Remnants Of The Past

Some days ago I managed to visit lake Laach which is not just any usual lake. The depth of over 200m is a clear sign that something else has been going on... Located in the Eifel mountain range in Germany, it is part of the East Eifel volcanic field. The lake itself was formed by a big eruption around 13,000 years ago and had a VEI of around 6. So I guess it's a mid sized eruption and is comparable to the Pinatubo eruption in 1991.

However, the interesting part is that the volcano under it is still somewhat active. The activity itself can be observed as "mofettas" which is a gas discharge coming from under the lake and can be seen in the bubbles rising to the surface.

Source: wikipedia

Here is a bit more about its history:

The initial blasts of Laacher See, which took place in late spring or early summer at around 11,000 BC, flattened trees up to four kilometres away. The magma opened a route to the surface that erupted for about ten hours, with the plume probably reaching a height of 35 kilometres. Activity continued for several weeks or months, producing pyroclastic currents that covered valleys up to ten kilometres away with sticky tephra. Near the crater, deposits reach over fifty metres in thickness, and even five kilometres away they are still ten metres thick. All plants and animals for a distance of about sixty kilometres to the northeast and forty kilometres to the southeast must have been wiped out.

It's interesting to me how we could have possibly known that the eruption took place in spring or summer... or that the eruption itself lasted for 10 hours?!

Anyway, I decided to actually get a boat and hop onto the lake myself. The moon was out as well, which made for a beautiful scenery together with the sunshine and forest.

It's probably mostly superstition, but knowing that I was paddling on a dormant volcano felt a bit off. I mean it could go off any day they say...

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