Home / September 25th, 2010; Vol.178 #7 / Feature Fire & Ice Volcanoes and frozen lands make an explosive combo By Alexandra Witze September 25th, 2010; Vol.178 #7 (p. 16) FIRE AND ICE Iceland’s Eyjafjallajökull volcano erupted quietly at first this spring (shown), until magma shifted directly beneath a glacier.Odd Stefan Thorisson/Nordicphotos/Corbis SVEIFLUHÁLS, Iceland — High atop an Icelandic mountain one magnificent summer day, with blankets of soft moss underfoot and a translucent lake shimmering in the valley below, geologist Emily Constantine Mercurio is conjuring up an image of hell. Tens of thousands of years ago, says Mercurio, a graduate student at the University of Pittsburgh, this place was the heart of a…

The Story of the World’s Most Coveted Flower By Mike Dash Crown Publishers A tulip, known as “the Viceroy”, displayed in a 1637 Dutch catalog. Its bulb cost between 3000 and 4200 florins depending on size. A skilled craftsman at the time earned about 300 florins a year.[1]