Valur Margeirsson in mud: http://timarit.is/view_page_init.jsp?issId=391471&pageId=6757946&lang=is&q=Bl%E1a%20Valur%20Margeirsson
In 1976 when the power plant first started pumping up water they hole was 100 – 150 meters deep. The pumped water that after surfing its purpose for the power plant got dumped into the lava. The lava which formed about 800 years ago and is quite young, clogged up and the lagoon started to grow. Today the hole stretches almost 2000 meters into the ground. The water is actually sea water from the Atlantic sea which the ground around the peninsula, that the Blue Lagoon is situated in, is full of. Far into the ground the heat is so much that minerals, elements and compounds, from the rock. These materials then get sucked dup with the waters. The water is also rich with bacteria also found in sea water. One of those bacteria is called Cyanobacteria and is partly the reason why the water has a nice green-blue colour but it also has another bacteria that wasn’t known before and is still not well known.
When the water reaches the ground and gets pumped out of the power plant into the lava it has cooled down significantly. This means that the waters no longer can keep those materials dissolved so some of them, like Silicon, fall to the bottom of the lagoon. This white sludgy mud has become a popular cosmetics product and the Blue Lagoon sells and developed products ranging from face mask to lip balm.
It is not fully known what how the water effects psoriasis patients but it’s cosmetic properties work well for a commercial market.
It can hardly be said that the industrial waist from the power plant is a natural disaster. But since its capabilities to treat and amuse people that bath in the water, waist has been turned into valuables.
Sindri Sigurðsson
archandphil 
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