Plotting Iceland – with the GPS Visualizer & Volcanic Riddles

Interactive map of volcano monitoring stations in Iceland.

Storm Ivar damaged power-lines in Sweden leaving 55000 homes without electricity. While we wait for Carl to get back online, here are some snacks for the Friday evening party for you! Update: Carl is fine and not affected by Ivar.

Recently I got a bit frustrated by the fact that even after two years of participating in the Volcanocafé I still often have no clue where the heck these Icelandic seismic (SIL) stations are. With the exception of maybe HEK  (Hekla) or ASK (Askja) the acronyms are mostly not self-explanatory (at least to me), and hence I was looking for a good map. There is the excellent new CGPS network homepage operated by the Icelandic Met Office (IMO), but unfortunately the map does not provide links to seismic data yet. The old IMO map has a clickable Seismograph map, but the station markers only appear on mouse over and the map is not zoomable so it is cumbersome to find your way around. While searching for something that offers the benefit of both sites, I found the GPS Visualizer, where one can create interactive maps online for free.

From the homepage: “GPS Visualizer is an online utility that creates maps and profiles from geographic data. It is free and easy-to-use, yet powerful and extremely customizable. Input can be in the form of GPS data (tracks and waypoints), driving routes, street addresses, or simple coordinates. Use it to see where you’ve been, plan where you’re going, or simply visualize geographic data (scientific observations, events, business locations, customers, real estate, geotagged photos, etc.).”

The website creates all kind of maps, from a simple JPG to a fully interactive google or google Earth maps with your own placemarkers, with links to data, websites or webcams for example. As an example for combining and visualizing data sources, I created a map of Iceland with all SIL, GPS, strainmeters, infrasound arrays and some webcams, which you can download below.

Making your own map is as simple as shown in this screenshot (changes highlighted).

The interface for data input is very flexible and requires only minimum standards, which is nicely described in these tutorials. You need no programming skills at all!
In principal you just have to copy-paste three columns from an Excel sheet or text editor with “name”, “latitude” and “longitude” as headers. You can extend that list with all kind of information, e.g. descriptive text, altitude, velocity, what kind of symbols to use, the color, and more. GPS Visualizer can also create a color scale based on a specified parameter, for example earthquake depth.

Very much to my disappointment we cannot embed these map here on Volcanocafé, because WordPress does not allow to embed scripts out of security concerns. Instead, I uploaded the html code for the google map, which you may download here and start in your browser locally. If you want to create your own map including the above links, here is the Excel file with all locations I assembled so far. This direct link  will only work temporarily.

Sources: 

SIL station coordinates are from the International Registry of Seismograph Stations.

GPS station coordinates and links to timeseries plots are from IMO, the Institute of Earth Sciences and the CGPS website.

Finding webcam coordinates was quite a bit of detective work, but this website helped a lot: http://www.wetterklima.de/cams/island.htm

For place names in Iceland this is the map: http://atlas.lmi.is/kortasja_en/

With Christmas arriving soon, here is one of Spica´s favourite cookie recipies:
Linzer Augen (Linzer Eyes)
Resemble a very flat volcano with a lava lake 😉

1 cup slivered almonds, blanched or toasted
8 tbsp. (1 stick) unsalted butter, at room temperature
1/2 cup granulated sugar
1 egg yolk
1 tsp. finely grated orange or lemon zest
3/4 tsp. vanilla extract
1/4 tsp. almond extract
1 cup all-purpose flour
1/2 tsp. ground cinnamon
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 to 1/2 cup seedless raspberry jam
Confectioners’ sugar for dusting

Beat the butter until fluffy and pale yellow. Add the sugar and continue beating. Add the egg yolk, orange zest, vanilla and almond extract and beat until blended.

Sift together the flour, cinnamon and salt into another bowl. Add the ground almonds and stir to blend. Add the flour mixture to the butter mixture and beat on low speed or stir with a wooden spoon until blended. The dough should be soft.

Turn the dough out onto a clean work surface. Divide the dough into four equal portions and wrap each in plastic wrap. Refrigerate until chilled, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 180°C. Lightly grease 2 baking sheets or line with parchment paper.

Remove 1 portion of the dough at a time from the refrigerator. Place dough between 2 sheets of waxed paper and roll out 1/4 inch thick. Or roll it out with a rolling pin on a surface with a thin layer of flour. Using a cookie cutter about 2 1/2 inches in diameter, cut out the cookies. Using a 1 1/4-inch cutter, cut a hole in the center of only half of the cookies. (If you don’t have a cookie cutter use a glass which you dip into four, For the wholes you can use a thimble) Repeat with the remaining portions of dough. If the dough becomes sticky, wrap it in plastic wrap and freeze for 10 minutes before rolling out.

Carefully transfer the cookies to the prepared baking sheets. Bake until the cookies are firm to the touch, about 12 minutes. Transfer the baking sheets to wire racks. Loosen the cookies with the spatula, but leave the cookies on the sheets until thoroughly cooled. To assemble, spread the solid cookies with a thin layer (about 1 tsp.) of raspberry jam to within about 1/4 inch of the edges. Dust the cutout cookies generously with confectioners’ sugar. Top the solid cookies with the cutout cookies and fill the hole with more jam.
Recipe taken from http://globalcookies.blogspot.co.at/2007/09/austria-linzer-augen.html to save me the trouble of translating.

Some more english versions of Linzer Augen:

• http://www.food.com/recipe/linzer-augen-linzer-eyes-aka-linzer-tarts-or-linzer-cookies-270867
• This one with a video: http://www.joyofbaking.com/LinzerCookies.html
• http://allrecipes.com/recipe/linzer-augen/
• http://www.german-recipes-and-more.com/linzer-augen-recipe.html

Linz is my hometown and I do bake these traditional cookies every year.

And of course the riddles: 

1) Adding, sound &  image  —–> KarenZ 2 points Mount Sumbing
2) Two female relatives close together. Hint: a simple translation of 2 female relatives. Evan Chugg 1 point Tiatia.
3) A cultural show is held on a character from an old German song .CARL  1 point for Hagen volcano PNG and bonus point for Nibelungenlied.
4) Against  an arabic place. Alison 2 points. Antisana. Sana being a spelling of Sana’a the capital of Yemen
5) Carved into Euro Disney. Hint: a Euro Disney person, translation necessary here. And it has some “carvings” GeoLurking 1 point Maderas. Carl Holz is/was a CEO of Euro Disney and Maderas has some petroglyphs.

Score board
16 Sissel 14 Evan Chugg 8 Diana Barnes 8 Harrie 7 KarenZ 7 Shérine France 6 Henrik 5 Talla 4 Alison	4 Arjanemm 4 Cryphia 4 Graniya 4 Kelda 4 Matt 4 Stephanie Alice Halford 3 Michael Ross 3 Sa’Ke	2 Dorkviking 2 Lughduniense 2 Lurking 2 Maggiemom 2 Spica´s mate, St. Ananas 1 Bobbi 1 Bruce Stout 1 Edward 1 Irpsit

Enjoy!
Spica & chryphia