Iceland - 6/20/2009

From Dr. Fenster's Blog:

We had a spectacular day today. We rolled off the airplane at 6:00 a.m. and went directly to a town called Keflavik about 30 minutes away from the airport (“Kefla” means “sticks” and “vik” means “bay”). It got its name because of all the big sticks or pieces of wood that fishermen have to deal with in the bay. After a terrific breakfast at our hotel - more European than American, but definitely unique (I had salmon on a roll with an egg spread and cukes on top), we met Barb Tewksbury from Hamilton College, her husband Dave and her research student Elyse at our hotel. Our guide, Edward Williamson, took us all in a mini bus to three stops along the Reykjanes (pronounced "Wreck Yah Nays") Peninsula. "Reykja" means "smoky" and "nes" means “peninsula.” Put the two together and you can see what it means. Each stop was awe inspiring, breathtaking and truly unbelievable. The scale of volcanic processes that you can walk right up to and look at is truly in a class by itself.

We first visited a place called "Crater Row" which contained "spatter cones" in a line for kilometers and kilometers. These are steep-sided hills of "spatter" built up by lava fountains and central vents that form above fissures (cracks) where magma comes to the Earth's surface. We saw and hiked on many different kinds including one that had had a lava lake in it when it formed a thousand years ago. The lava would fill up the crater to form a lava lake, spill over the sides, fill back up and spill over—over and over again, each time forming a hard crust on the top before it spilled. Then, after it spilled, it flowed down the side of the spatter cone through lava tubes that are now hollow. My student Bray climbed in one to get his picture taken. He wanted to crawl all the way through it, but Barb thought that wasn't a good idea.

Our second stop was truly astonishing. Huge piles— almost mountains—of volcanic material that formed about 12,000 years ago under ice sheets also form a line along the peninsula. We visited the one right on the southwest coast of Iceland on the Atlantic Ocean and it was breathtaking. Here, the Earth literally splits in two and moves in opposite directions so that each year, the U.S. and Europe get father apart from each other. This site showed why Jack Trammell, the director of our summer school program, wanted me to call this course "The Geology of Iceland: The Seam on the Coat of the World." The two pieces of lithosphere move at about the same rate that your fingernails grow, but you could literally see the crack—really a valley—starting on land and then descending down into the Atlantic Ocean. The valley on land had numerous, small shield volcanoes in it and a new power plant that's tapping the hot water beneath the ground but on top of the magma for generating power (electricity) and sending hot water to homes. Then, around the corner from this large mountain of lava, on the ocean, and right in the middle of the valley that I just mentioned, was the most unbelievable beach I have ever seen. The beach was not made of sand, but of boulders the size of about 10-20 bowling balls put together, about 3 feet or more around each. The waves that brought those boulders to that beach must have been enormous!

We ended our field trip at a place with boiling sulfur water (hot springs) and mud pots (a hot spring that carries mostly boiling mud and some water). We hiked all around it while the very hot water spewed steam and sulfur (it was stinky).

We heard lots of great folklore and saw a few interesting animals, including short and cute horses whose lineage comes from horses brought to Iceland by Nordic Vikings. Some of my students want to ride them, but that's not high on my priority list. I did, however, see an advertisement for helicopter rides around Iceland!!

Tomorrow we're off to the Blue Lagoon—a hot bath—next to a geothermal power plant on the Reykjanes Peninsula, then to Reykjavik for museums, map/book collecting and some shopping. Then Tuesday a.m. we visit a geothermal energy plant and then take the ferry boat to the Westman Island, off the south coast of Iceland.

It's now midnight here and the sun has not set. You may know that this is the summer solstice, or longest day of the year. I hope you have enjoyed your day as much as we have.