Iceland’s Famed ‘Lunar Landscape’ Is Turning Purple – Atlas Obscura
The term lunar landscape is a phrase often used to describe the boundless Icelandic deserts, shaped by volcanic eruptions and covered in different shades of lava. The volcanic regions of Iceland are great training fields owing to their desiccation, low nutrient availability, and temperature extremes, in addition to the advantages of geological youth and isolation from sources of anthropogenic contamination, according to a 2018 NASA document.
Thus their very barrenness is an asset. But lately, creeping about these deserts is a peculiar purple alien: the Alaskan lupine. This plant arrived on the scene not long after the astronauts, and it was at first embraced as an efficient cover for eroded land. But the experiment blew up in Iceland s face and left a permanent purple mark. Now the lupine is considered an invasive plant, as it threatens not only the existing flora but also the barren volcanic interior, a place of magnificent desolation, the words Buzz Aldrin once used to describe the Moon.
The rolling black sands of Hólasandur where the astronauts once traveled is today a purple field. As the climate changes, the lupine spreads into places previously protected from the plant by cold temperatures and low rainfall. Some Icelanders welcome the Alaskan flower; some decry its invasion. It s a highly contentious issue, as the fight for Iceland s color has spurred a new form of identity politics.