Our return to Thingvallir

We returned to the magical Thingvallir UNESCO World Heritage Site yesterday with some amazing early images of Iceland from our collection.

 

 

Eyjafjallajökull eruption

The farm that was covered by ash, now a peaceful idyl

Columnar basalt near Vik, Iceland

Forestry and climate change in Iceland

Dettifoss

Dettifoss in Northern Iceland is Europe’s largest waterfall by volume. It flows over some stunning columnar basalt lavas

The Krafla Fires eruption

Black lava from the Krafla Fires (1984) over the grey Myvatn Fires lava (1724-29) next to snow. Fracture crack to the left.

 

 

 

Alpine Clubmoss and the Museum’s fossil tree

Icelandic flora

Beautiful Icelandic minerals

We haven’t been collecting any Icelandic minerals on our trip, but they are fairly easy to find. Most of the minerals in Iceland grow in the frozen gass bubbles which are really common in the basalt.

We have a really nice selection of minerals from Iceland already in the collection, but it is great to properly understand how they have formed.

Collecting the Myvatn fires 1724-29

One of the main reasons to come to Iceland was to collect new volcanic structures for the museum alongside collecting stories, interviews and background information. We were able to collect some beautiful Ropey lava from the 1724-29 Myvatn Fires eruption yesterday.

They show the classic  ‘ropey’ texture of gas poor, very fluid lava that flowed down the hill and across the valley in the images below. The lava was very brittle.

The edge of the lava flow

We have made every effort to collect in a responsible way. We have permission to export from the Icelandic Institute of Natural History and are only collecting loose material. A telegraph line ran across part of the lava flow which gave us a good, very disturbed area to collect from.

Washing specimens in a hydrothermal shower