Although it’s hard to say why, some of nature’s most powerful forces make for some of the most soothing sounds. Lapping ocean waves are, of course, a bedtime classic. As are monstrous thunderstorms. Now we can add to the list of sublime, “sleepy time” soundscapes, volcano ASMR. Because, again, we apparently love the sound of Earth transforming in gnarly ways that could easily kill people.
Digg picked up on this new taste of volcano ASMR, which photographer Jakob Vegerfors recently posted to his YouTube channel. Vegerfors, who’s currently in Iceland, has been capturing footage of the erupting Geldingadalir volcano, which recently started spewing lava again after 6,000 years of dormancy.
Along with his incredible, ultra-high-definition videos, it seems Vegefors is now getting into the ASMR (or autonomous sensory meridian response) game. Which makes a lot of sense, as volcano sounds are apparently calming AF. Something we first noted in previously captured drone footage of Geldingadalir.
In this four-minute slice of auditory delight, Vegerfors offers a range of Geldingadalir’s sounds; including the roar of its crater flinging hunks of lava into the air, the crackling of nearby earth as it’s roasted, and the tingling hiss of steam as it escapes from roiling magma.
The only downside of Vegerfors’ video is its brevity, but the photographer’s working on fixing that. Vegerfors says in the video’s description that a 20-minute version is on its way, which is obviously ideal for ASMR. It’s hard to zen out in just four minutes, after all.
Hopefully Vegerfors continues to crank out volcano ASMR videos, because Geldingadalir is apparently going to grow into Mordor. The shield volcano—which, like other shield volcanoes, looks like a warrior’s shield when viewed from above—is expected to rise hundreds of feet into the air over the next several decades. Sadly, for now, we can only dream about what that lava-belching behemoth would sound like.
