Bull's blood for baby Jesus
Nov. 1st, 2006 12:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ventaToday's Icelandic topic is...
In a sense, quite a lot of Iceland is volcanic stuff one way or another. The entire island has been blowing itself up periodically in perpetuity, and it shows in the landscape. There are isolated mountains sitting on perfectly flat planes; apparently they are cores of dead volcanoes still standing after their lava fields have ground away to flatness. Extinct craters fill with lakes, and mossgrown lava fields stretch for miles. A little reading makes it apparent that geography is somewhat negotiable in Iceland. The coastline, the locations of lakes and rivers, even the presence of islands is subject to change at short notice.
However, the still-active volcanic stuff was a large factor in my wanting to visit; I loved the weird landscapes created by the geothermal areas in New Zealand.
As you drive out of Reykjavik, the hillsides are pocked with bursts of steam. Sadly, investigation reveals that most of these are small chimneys or man-made pipes - letting out naturally occurring steam but, as these things go, not that pretty to look at.
Even before we left the capital the smell of sulphur had become familiar. A sign on the bathroom wall informed hotel guests that the water was geothermally heated and naturally had a "faint aroma of sulphur". Which, if you translate "faint aroma" as "overpowering stench", is true. This also means it's vital that even people like me who hate cold water run the tap a while before drinking - if you get cooled "hot" water that's been standing in the pipes it tastes unbelievably vile and has a strange oleaginous quality.
The Geyser at Geysir (for which all geysers are named) is not dead, but it is only seen rarely at present. Aparently it was going off a few times a day after earthquakes in 2000, but is now starting to doze again. Fortunately, immediately round it are a number of other hot bubbly pools to keep the tourist entertained, including another geyser called Strokkur. Strokkur means "churn", and it's named because, unlike other geysers were the water boils underground before spouting into the air, Strokkur is a broad pool which boils at the surface.
I'd guess that the pool is a few feet across. As you watch it the surface of the water laps up and down, sometimes dropping a foot or two and returning to its level with sucking noises. Every ten minutes or so the level begins to rise up until a huge bulge forms, a blue and grey pimple a few feet high which then bursts and sends a ragged pillar of steaming water into the air.
Before we gave Snorri, our hire-car, back and explored Reykjavik on our legs I mutinously demanded a long drive on a bumpy track to visit Seltún. I should admit that by Icelandic standards it was a gravel road in good repair - but Snorri was a front-wheel drive Toyota estate car for whose paintwork we were responsible to AVIS, and he found it tough going.
Seltún is a small area of "high-temperature" activity at the surface, which means smoking craters, bizarrely ice-cream coloured rocks, psychedelic algae and (my favourite) hot bubbling mud. The area is surprisingly noisy for something which looks, in normal terms, utterly barren. Steam hisses, mud glops and warm, grey water trickles down rocks coated with white mineral deposits.
This area of alien landscape is probably only the size of a lage back garden; all round it green hills rise, trying hard to pretend that there's nothing odd going on down there. From the road, only the thin clouds of steam give any hint of why there is a large car park in the middle of nowhere.
Previously: Waterfalls
In a sense, quite a lot of Iceland is volcanic stuff one way or another. The entire island has been blowing itself up periodically in perpetuity, and it shows in the landscape. There are isolated mountains sitting on perfectly flat planes; apparently they are cores of dead volcanoes still standing after their lava fields have ground away to flatness. Extinct craters fill with lakes, and mossgrown lava fields stretch for miles. A little reading makes it apparent that geography is somewhat negotiable in Iceland. The coastline, the locations of lakes and rivers, even the presence of islands is subject to change at short notice.
However, the still-active volcanic stuff was a large factor in my wanting to visit; I loved the weird landscapes created by the geothermal areas in New Zealand.
As you drive out of Reykjavik, the hillsides are pocked with bursts of steam. Sadly, investigation reveals that most of these are small chimneys or man-made pipes - letting out naturally occurring steam but, as these things go, not that pretty to look at.
Even before we left the capital the smell of sulphur had become familiar. A sign on the bathroom wall informed hotel guests that the water was geothermally heated and naturally had a "faint aroma of sulphur". Which, if you translate "faint aroma" as "overpowering stench", is true. This also means it's vital that even people like me who hate cold water run the tap a while before drinking - if you get cooled "hot" water that's been standing in the pipes it tastes unbelievably vile and has a strange oleaginous quality.
The Geyser at Geysir (for which all geysers are named) is not dead, but it is only seen rarely at present. Aparently it was going off a few times a day after earthquakes in 2000, but is now starting to doze again. Fortunately, immediately round it are a number of other hot bubbly pools to keep the tourist entertained, including another geyser called Strokkur. Strokkur means "churn", and it's named because, unlike other geysers were the water boils underground before spouting into the air, Strokkur is a broad pool which boils at the surface.
I'd guess that the pool is a few feet across. As you watch it the surface of the water laps up and down, sometimes dropping a foot or two and returning to its level with sucking noises. Every ten minutes or so the level begins to rise up until a huge bulge forms, a blue and grey pimple a few feet high which then bursts and sends a ragged pillar of steaming water into the air.
Before we gave Snorri, our hire-car, back and explored Reykjavik on our legs I mutinously demanded a long drive on a bumpy track to visit Seltún. I should admit that by Icelandic standards it was a gravel road in good repair - but Snorri was a front-wheel drive Toyota estate car for whose paintwork we were responsible to AVIS, and he found it tough going.
Seltún is a small area of "high-temperature" activity at the surface, which means smoking craters, bizarrely ice-cream coloured rocks, psychedelic algae and (my favourite) hot bubbling mud. The area is surprisingly noisy for something which looks, in normal terms, utterly barren. Steam hisses, mud glops and warm, grey water trickles down rocks coated with white mineral deposits.
This area of alien landscape is probably only the size of a lage back garden; all round it green hills rise, trying hard to pretend that there's nothing odd going on down there. From the road, only the thin clouds of steam give any hint of why there is a large car park in the middle of nowhere.
Previously: Waterfalls
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no subject
Date: 2006-11-01 02:12 pm (UTC)rotorua in nz is one of my favourite places to visit. i love the boiling mud pools, i can spend hours just staring at them going gloopgloop. and you get used to teh smell after a while, it becomes hardly noticeable!
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From:no subject
Date: 2006-11-01 06:09 pm (UTC)grow updie.And why Snorri? Or did I miss an earlier explanation?
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From: