Etna

Etna through the murk

The mighty Mt Etna is the subject of the Volcanic Processes Field Course.  It takes the stuff we learned in Physical Volcanology and plonks it in the real world setting of a live volcano, and in Europe, you don't get much more live than Etna.  It is one of those hills that's always doing something.  Unfortunately for us Etna the mighty chose (apart from one occasion) to gently, serenely smoke for the duration of our trip, but that's nature for you - if you want certainty chose something man made.

The process of getting there started at a very ungodly hour of the morning with a shared taxi to Manchester Airport.  I can never sleep on planes, but I knew that there would be little to be done on day one apart from getting there and getting booked into the hotel, so getting a little shut-eye later on was possible.  Most people on the VPFC were traveling from Lancaster/Manchester, but a small number were coming into Catania via different routes and that was one of the main issues on arrival there - rounding everyone up.  Catania airport is the polar opposite if Reykjavik (mentioned in an earlier post) which is phenomenal in almost every respect.  Incoming planes circle around the South East of Etna, dropping altitude as they go, to approach the airport from the seaward side, making for some nerve-jangling cross winds - our pilot thought it was such good fun that he had a second go at landing - yippee!

Etna as the plane banked for landing

The view from the airport to the hill taken whilst rounding up stray VPFC students

On the ground, nerves shredded, everyone rounded up and on the minibuses, I was in a car with Nathan a PhD student along to demo for us.  My job was to offer moral support and some of my rudimentary Italian translation skills in an attempt to get us to our destination.  We are talking comedy central as Nathan had never driven a car from the other side, and on the opposite side of the road before and every other driver in Catania seemed to know it!!  At one point as we searched in vain for a likely gap in the traffic on one of the motorways, a Carabinieri car slowed along side us and the passenger said something into his radio.  It was probably a warning to everyone else that there were a couple of in experienced Brit tourists on the road - Look out!

Nicolosi is tucked away below the small but imposing bulk of the Monti Rossi Cone, and as such Etna cannot be viewed from many places in the town, and then, surprisingly,  it comes into view between some houses or along a street with the right angle on it.  References to the hill are everywhere, but as is often the case, the locals have a nonchalant attitude to it.  Etna has provided a few close calls in the past, but otherwise its just part of the back ground in a town where the shops have to be kept, the bars have to be tended, bread has to be baked, coffee percolated, the streets policed, bins emptied, children taught in school, and the faithful given their daily bread.  In other words despite being sat on something big and explosive, life must go on. 

Life started each morning with a trip to the local patisserie for genuine wake me up coffee and pastries to die for - at least it did for those who could roll out of bed in time for this treat, and it was a great way to start the day before piling into the minibuses and the hire car to get to the location of the day.

The locations were many and varied over the duration of the course.  The rubble strewn trudge up to the rim of the Upper Sylvestre cone was rewarded with fantastic views in all directions and an excellent view of the source of the 2001 lower flow field, which flowed to within a couple of km of Nicolosi.  It was possible to make out through the snow (we were above the snow line here, just a few hundred yards from the La Sapienza ski resort that was partially damaged in 2001) the SE rift and the prominent spatter cone around the 2100m vent, leading rapidly to the levee's of the start of the flow field.  The lava looped around the northern flank of the Sylvestre cone and can be seen to follow the northern flank  of the cone row off into the distance in the direction of Monte Rossi.   

Dr Mike James talking about the 2001 eruption - the 2100m vent is in the background.

 

An especially fine field sketch from the rim of the Upper Sylvestre Cone.

View SE from the rim of the Upper Sylvestre Cone.  2001 flow field runs through the right of the image.

Closer examination of bits of the flow showing through the snow cover revealed its eccentric (rather than central/lateral) origins - the eccentric lavas from an offset independent magma chamber are noted for their amphibole megacrysts (some up to an inch long) and the many xenoliths of the Sicilian sedimentary basement rocks they contain - evidence of the more circuitous rout they have taken and the extras they gathered along the way via interactions with the country rock.  

Amphibole megacryst below the 2100m vent

Xenolith of sedimentary basement rock in 2001 flow below the 2100m vent

Further down the flow field, the snow cover was gone and the channel fed nature of the flow was much more evident.  In the area SW of Monte Grosso, the flow was easily accessed by a forestry path that crosses the flow and then turns north along the Eastern edge of the flow.  Here the scale of the flow was much more evident with armoured levees towering to 10m or more armour topped but flanked by horrendous ankle snapping AA clinker.  Close up, the armoured top sections of the levees revealed a texture that we christened the pulled pork texture (I dont know...  Maybe we were all feeling hungry).  It was clear that this had formed as molten and partially molten material in the channel had dragged past the levee armour at a time when the flow rate was higher.

Armoured Levee in the Monte Grosso Area

Close up of the levee with welded aa clinker at the base of the image and above this the armoured section with right to left flow features (Pulled Pork)

After the forestry path had turned north it crosses the secondary flow.  Here we examined a section of a small AA break out that can be seen in cross section.  The nature of AA is clear with the clinkery brittle exterior surface at odds with the much smoother, viscous, flowing interior.

AA cross section - secondary channel, Monte Grosso Area

At the front edge of the flow field - its cooling limited extent, the flow takes a many lobed nature as separate break outs vied to be that little bit closer to Nicolosi.  The result is a series of humpbacked lobes that have clearly frozen in the act of breaking over the previous flow (from the 1600's I think). looking south east, the peaks of Monte Rossi seem very close, illustrating just how much peril Nicolosi must have been in.  The steep forward slopes are frozen in the act of trying to make a few more metres,and as a last gasp of activity (literally), weird petal, blade and spine like structures have extruded like tooth paste, propelled from within until the waning strength of the eruption could make them go no further.  These modern art sculptures with their fractal feathery petals are quite unlike the aa clinker that coats the rest of the flow field appearing as the very final show of defiant activity.

Late stage spine structures at the main flow front

Main Flow front looking towards Monte Rossi and Nicolosi

A feathery late stage extrusion

Above the snow line the lava flows are well hidden and a knowledgeable guide is a requirement to successfully connect the various volcanic dots that do conspire to poke their heads above the snows surface.  Fortunately, being on a University field course, we had one (Mike) and what he did not tell us he gently poked and prodded us until we worked it out for ourselves.  From a parking place a km or so SE of the Sylvestre cone line, a steep forest path climbs to the upper slopes of the southern flank of the famous Valle Del Bove (VDB).  The VDB is like a wonder of the geological world.  It has the lot - a live volcano, the eastern flank of which is slightly less well bound than it should be due to multiple faults and is therefore gradually slipping into the Mediterranean creating a vast lava flow filled amphitheater.  It is an impressive vista to rival other volcanic greats from around the world like the Las Canadas caldera on Tenerife.        

Valle Del Bove

 Staying above the snow line, our guide (and inquisitor) Mike showed us an assortment of sites that illustrated the multiple ways in which Etna chooses to express herself.  She is definitely not happy with just eruption from her central vent, and the instability created by her heavily faulted eastern flank gives rise to zones of weakness through which fresh magma will on occasions push.  Frequently the same vent will erupt in a bi-modal manner moving from lively scoria cone building to throwing out cowpat bombs and spatter and even just straight effusion producing loby and ropey structures - the build up of spatter can even force the reactivation of the lava producing fresh flow.  The movement of magma within the mountain along fractures and faults is occasionally exposed as well in the form of dykes.

 Ropey and lobate structures, possibly the result of spatter reactivation

The tip of a dyke exposed above the snow

Lava - water interactions

The Honister slate mines in the Lake district are rightly famous as for centuries, the finely laminated Ordovician slates have provide a time honoured roofing material, and in more recent years, they have provided trinkets for the tourists at the visitor centre.  The exceptional beauty of the slate has also seen it used as a municipal decorative stone - visit St Nics shopping arcade in nearby Lancaster - you'll see some there.  The slates are the remains of ancient ash fall deposits, squashed, metamorphosed and then exhumed by the weather and the years.

The original fall deposition features can often be seen on this commemorative plaque a few hundred yards from the visitor centre.  There is clear evidence from different grain sizes and textures and things like graded bedding that there is more than one eruptive episode represented - the course to fine  upward grading indicates a degree of gravitational settling, possibly in still or only weakly flowing water. The evidence for water is also there further up the path were it is lined by large jagged boulder size chunks of a rock called Peperite.

Peperite at Honister slate Mine

Large jagged chucks of often vesicular Andesite are nested in the blue grey remains of what was once wet layered ash/mud at the bottom of a lake.  The Andesite intruded into the wet mud with the inevitable reaction. In the open air, with the lack of confining pressure, the lava acts in a phreatomagmatic manner - explosively, producing a fine ash.  Confined by water and heavy wet mud, the lava fractured on a much larger scale.

Cartoon of Peperite formation

Beyond the old miners cottages, across a bubbling mountain stream, the hills to the south offer evidence of the explosive nature of the andesite eruptions with fall and gravity flow deposits.  Bomb sags are a frequent occurrence, as are quasi-sedimentary structures like cross-bedding.  The different sizes of clast form distinct gravity driven layers which have now been heavily faulted. 

Bomb sag in a fall deposit

Airborne fall deposits and later faulting.

Miners Cottage - Honister Pass

So Where have I been?

Did I mention that I was going to Lancaster University to study Volcanoes.  Now I know what you're thinking.  There aint a heap of volcanoes in the UK, much less Lancaster.  But that's where you're wrong.  OK so they are not going BANG any more, but they're there none the less - or should I say the rocks they produced are there.  It's easy to dismiss this countries volcanic heritage, but for those in the know, little pockets of evidence pop up all over the place of what an exciting place the UK once was to live in.  Traveler Sir Joseph Banks and composer Felix Mendelssohn both in their own ways extolled the beauty and virtues of the Scottish Island of Staffa - a name of Nordic derivation meaning Pillar Island - a reference to the famous columnar lava flows at Fingals cave.  Hadrians Wall perches for many a mile atop an igneous intrusion, part of a network of similar intrusions that stretch from the island of Mull to the Northumberland coast where Bamborough dominates its surrounding from the summit of another intrusion.  A few miles out to sea the Farne islands, a bird watchers paradise are also of interest to the volcanologist, while across the Pennines, the Lake District is studded with volcanic deposits and evidence of its violent past.

Further south, the carboniferous limestone of Cavedale near Castleton in the in the Peak District is crossed by an equally carboniferous basalt lava flow, and the summit rocks of Beacon Hill in Leicestershire were formed from explosive volcanic ash fall in a time when only single celled organisms inhabited the Earth.  Igneous deposits and rocks also pop up in Wales and the south west of England being responsible for both  the famous mineral resources and rolling moorland of that area. So yes Britain has plenty to offer the Volcanologist.  

Lancaster has one of the largest and foremost outposts of volcanologists and I spent a year with them studying a M.Sc in Volcanology and enabling me to build on my knowledge and skills from the B.Sc I studied with the Open Uni and make some valuable contacts in the process.  Anyone interested in Volcanoes should go there and watch Dr Hugh Tuffen cook rocks.  But there's more to it than that - It's a community of the like minded from world leading researchers to young hopefuls like me taking their first faltering steps into researching volcanoes, 

It is a shame that the university has ditched its famous Lancaster University Swoosh logo in favour of something more Heraldic (the Robot - go to the website and check it out).  It may be that bit more dignified and that bit less like the Atari logo, but what the heck, can you do this with the robot?

I think Not.


And Oh boy what a first step into research!  I could have done one of the Lancaster University recommended dissertation subjects, but I wanted something that was completely my own.  Now, we all know that there's nothing new under the sun, but I was persistent in my ideas of what I wanted to do and in combination with academic Dr Mike James an idea for an original body of research gradually crystallized (Ha Ha, no pun intended), and with both Mike and Hugh on-board as supervisors, I had the best educational experience of my life, bar none.  This is what being on the sharp end of something is all about.  Anyway, More about that later.  Suffice to say that I have had the time of my life becoming a Master of Science, Rock Master, Volcanoman, whatever, and there are only more adventures to come!  Watch this space.

  

The Biggest Bang in Recorded History...

The Caldera from the Winery

The big bang...

It's the start of everything. Isn't it? Cosmologists would have us believe that about 14 gazzillion years ago, in one very loud instant, we went from nothing to... well if not necessarily everything, at least quite a lot of it. And who knows, they might even be right, but that's not the big bang I'm on about. My big bang is on a rather more human scale – imaginable because it happened within the span of human history. It happened only three and a half thousand years ago – hell from a cosmological perspective, we can still hear the echo!

The airport

The international airport at Santorini is insane! Not in the same way as other airports are insane. Other airports are Machiavellian masterpieces, designed to remove all sense of place and time before flying you to another place and a different time zone. While you await the chance to go through the gate you are bombarded with the opportunity to buy all the things you may have forgotten and lots of things you probably don't need. Once through the gate, the onslaught on your holiday spending money intensifies and the price of a cup of coffee trebles, but the price of Boss by Hugo Boss becomes tax free. The money haemorrhages from your wallet. And as the departure boards change with slumber inducing speeds, you wonder, having gotten up at 4am this morning and being in dire danger of nodding off, if you will have enough time to get to your gate once it has been silently announced...

The caldera from the plane

Santorini international airport is insane because it has none of that! The couple of concourse shops sell local trinkets, Coca Cola and Lays – How quaint. The waiting room were we (about 250 of us) crowded for over an hour on the way back had just about 20 seats – Genius! It is without doubt the straightest stretch of tarmac on the island and can be clearly seen as the plane banks around to approach past the mass of Profitas Ilias – the highest point on the island and one of the few parts that is not volcanic in origin. The plane bumps down and one has to wonder if the pilot only does this as a hobby and his actual area of expertise is dentistry or brick-laying. The runway shuttle bus arrives and so begins the undignified scramble to (a.) get your luggage from the overheads, (b.) get out of the plane, shouldering aside any fellow passengers like a pro-footballer (the American type), and (c.) get a seat on the shuttle bus for that 2 minute journey... For those saddo's and losers who are not prepared to take this affirmative action, there is the indignity of having to stand up on the shuttle bus! Duh!

In the airport, the customs man barely acknowledges my passport or even my presence, and then it's out of the building, into the blazing sun and the chaos of finding our rep. The reps allocate people to buses depending on their eventual destination. It's like being in the middle of one of those epic films with casts of thousands, all of whom are shouting at once – Chaotic, but with a narrative all the same – where are we going to? Perissa – on the inexpensive side of the island. The bus traverses a switchback road through whitewashed villages to to crest of the island with the mass of Profitas Ilias off to the left before similar route down the other side. Whitewashed villages turn dusty and seemingly half finished close up. Vines hunker down close to the volcanic soil. And Venician windmills march across the horizon.

Profitas Ilias from Perissa

Profitas Ilias is a crumpled piece of the basement the oldest rocks on Santorini through which all the volcanic bits burrowed to get to the surface. Looking at it from our destination, Perissa, one can see the curves of tortured meta-sediments and the slashes of the controlling faults. Close up the rocks - marbles, phylites and greywakes speak of their sedimentary origins – they were once seabed, now they are the highest oldest point on the island.

Back to the big bang

So back to that big bang. Three and a half thousand years ago, there was an Island – one of a group of islands called the Cyclides, sited a couple of hundred kilometers behind the Hellenic trench were the African plate descends below the Aegean plate. Back then it had already been the site of several violent episodes of volcanism, creating an island with an inland waterway cutting it off from the volcano in the centre. This was a thriving trading centre at the northern edge of influence of Crete's famous Minoan civilization. All this started to unravel over about 3 weeks to a month in 1650BC when the island was hit by many earthquakes and the volcano started to erupt violently. It sent plumes of smoke, rock and ash into the stratosphere in a so-called Plinian eruption. The ash settled out under gravity, blanketing the island, every road, roof, field. One of the major killers in eruptions is building collapse as ash blankets the roofs of buildings that are not designed to support the extra weight. The final cataclysmic eruption is that big bang I'm talking about. It's arguably the biggest bang in recorded history, and it may have been due to a caldera forming magma chamber collapse... It could have been a Phraetomagmatic explosion due to magmatic interaction with sea water...

The results can be seen all over the island as a thick (up to 60m thick in some places) pale ash layer (photo 4). The ash is mixed with rock fragments, pumice, volcanic bombs and even (as I found) the occasional bit of pottery. From a the water taxi, you can see how soft the ash is were it has been wind eroded into weird castles at the shoreline  and the nutrients provided by the volcanic ash produce good wine producing soils. From the inside of the caldera, the successive layers of ash, pumice and lava can be seen in their magnificence telling a tale of eruptive activity going back over half a million years – The biggest bang in recorded history may be the one that gets talked about, but it was by no means the first.

Ash deposits from the 1645BC eruption

Pumice

Volcanic Bomb

Minoan Pottery (maybe) found buried in the ash deposits

Wind sculpted ash castles 

Ghost towns

There are two ghost towns in Santorini. Akrotiri was the ancient Minoan settlement buried Pompeii style by the ash from the 1645BC eruption. It was a bustling trade centre, frozen in place for over 30 centuries. Unlike Pompeii, there are no bodies, no remains at all. It seems that the the seismic events preceding the eruptive phase was enough to make the population of a thriving town abandon it. Today it is under a climate controlled roof, viewed from carefully placed walkways and viewing points so that the complexity of Minoan culture and the enormity of the disaster which overran it can be appreciated.

The village shop at Akrotiri

The second ghost town is from 30 centuries later. Mesa Gonia (the Corner) suffered a similar set of earth tremors that caused the inhabitants to abandon it completely. Now residents are moving back, renovating and rebuilding, but they are cheek and jowl with houses long abandoned and falling into disrepair, the only people viewing them, the bus loads of tourists. Some of the houses here are actually built into the soft deposits of ash from the 1645BC eruption. The irony is as thick as the ash deposits. 

Craters and Lava domes

Nea Kameni – the current volcanic centre on Santorini is thought to be much smaller that the volcanic peak responsible for the 1645BC eruption. It has appeared on phases and stages since 197BC, with it variously poking it's head above the water in different places at different times before submerging again. The growth of the current shield volcano really took off after 1866 when the Georgios lavas spread out over a wide area. The last eruption was in 1950, but don't be fooled, Nea Kameni is only slumbering. The main crater can be accessed and viewed with ease, lying just south west of the Niki Lava dome.  A tourist path circumnavigates the rim of the crater, and holding ones hand over unassuming holes in the ground near a small cluster of seismic equipment on the south eastern crater rim betrays the heat that is not that far below.  This is the breath of the beast below...  and it's only slumbering...

Lava flows seem to be blocky affairs – the lava was very sticky dacitic, and it emerged like tooth paste, the occasional bomb being blasted pout by the pressures created. This has created a blasted landscape of black, brown and red rock, some coated in dust, others almost glassy smooth, some clearly very dense, others strangely light weight. It's a growing island on which barely anything grows. It's a land of contradictions.

The Main Crater, Nea Kameni

The Niki Lava Dome , Nea Kameni

Sunsets

Santorini is pretty boastful about its sunsets. It is as much about the location as about the actual setting of out nearest star. I have experienced more spectacular combinations of setting sun and appropriately placed clouds and pollution induced colouration in the UK. Try the Isle of Harris off the west coast of Scotland sometime. If you see it from the top of Clisham – Harris' highest peak, it takes some beating. That said, the three sunsets I experiences whilst I was there were not bad efforts. I one I was sat in a cliff top restaurant in the capitol of the island – Fira – with an enormous ice cream and a view out into the caldera before me. A strong gusty wind was whipping the sea surface into little mini tornados amid the surface chop. The view from romantic Oia (pronounced ear) lacks land reference points unless you position yourself very carefully. By about 2 hours before sunset, all the best spots have been taken and in the last half hour or so, there is a frantic scramble, seemingly by every person in town to that end of town. There must be a measurable isostatic adjustment of Santorini every sunset as large portions of the transient population all gather at one end. Does that end go down and the other go up? There's a PHD project there I think. Finally, sunset from a sail boat has everything but land, but who needs land on a sailboat. The company, the food, the Santorini wine (which is rather good by the way), that feel of continuous automatic adjustment of your stance – your sea-legs.

Sunset from Fira

Sunset from Oia

Sunset from the sail boat

Agates

Red Beach is on the shallow side of the island. No caldera view. Just down the hill from the ruins at Akrotiri. The iron rich red rocks of the Therasia Shield outcrop as high loose cliffs above a narrow shingle and sand beach and aquamarine waters. Sun worshipers arrive from the carpark at the Akrotiri end, or from the sea via the frequent water taxis. The water is clear and just the right temperature to cool off in. The general tempo of the place is relax... soak up the sun... have a cool drink... So I wander off in search of treasure! Millenia ago, silica rich fluids seeped through the red rocks, depositing silica in its most common form - quatrz, but with a twist -layer on microscopic layer with slightly different chemical contaminants, forming beautiful, intricate patterns, each one individual, each completely unique – like little tiny faberge eggs - agate. The patient obsessive, can sit in the cool of the water at the surf line and pick slivers and chips of these agates from the shingle – no two of them the same, yet all equally beautiful. I'm one such obsessive.

Red Beach

As the sun drops to the horizon, the sun worshipers start to thin out, leaving only empty coke bottles and plastic wrapping as the echoes of their presence.  The die-hard obsessive sits in the gently lapping surf excavating hand-fulls of shingle for the surf to sort and categorise.  Amid the light absorbent reds, browns and blacks of the volcanic pebbles, the occasional fleck of light reflective quartz shines like a tiny star, yearning to be found, beckoning the obsessive to take it...

Agate

Agate

Agate

Agate

Agate

Agate

Agate

Land of Fire and Ice...

Smokey Bay

The title should read Land of Fire and Ice (and rain, and painfully short days (in Winter), and far too expensive beer prices for nights that are that long, and fantastic, helpful, optimistic people...).  Need I go on?  Five short days is simply not enough - especially when the days are that short!  My post exam (Post degree really) trip was to the the mid-atlantic ridge - the bit, that is, which pokes above the choppy waters of the North Atlantic.

Landing at Keflavik international in the dark the WOW AIR pilot had given us a taster of Icelandic culture even before we arrived - Ladies and Gentlemen, off to the right side of the plane, you can see the Northern Lights - This was about two minutes after the seat belts sign had come on and the trolley-dollies were hustling up and down the plane ensuring that all the seat backs and tray tables were in the upright and locked position.  I was in an isle seat.  It would have been downright rude to clamber across the laps of the quietly spoken and very polite middle aged Icelandic couple next to me, just so I could get my first glimpse of the lights.  They'd seen it all before of course and could not have cared less.


Keflavik was like all airports - seemingly designed by a lunatic with a penchant for mazes.  Back, forth, up a ramp, down an escalator, across a raised platform were others, presumably further along in their attempt to leave the airport, crossed below you at right angles to your direction of travel.  Is there an active competition to make airports as confusing as possible?  That said there's definitely a bit more of a  "Grand Designs" feel to the place than there is at Heathrow.  Use of the dominant local stone  - basalt -  in the build lent it an individuality that is denied most airports.   Reykjavik (norse for smokey bay) initially comes into view as an undulating scattering of 1 - 2 story lights in the otherwise all enveloping darkness of South West Iceland, but it quickly thickens up into something more like a capitol city as the airport bus cruises serenely towards the city centre.  The airport bus service is run with military precision - large buses bring the passengers en mass to the Greyline bus station were they are then split off into smaller mini-buses, the better to negotiate passage around the narrow streets.  The side streets are generally quiet, filled with 2 and 3 story residences, but the main drag - Laugavegur -  in the evening is awash with late shoppers, restaurant goers and barflies, a mass of motion below some of the most tasteful Christmas decorations I have ever seen - Much better than the tacky, usually hollywood movie  inspired ones in London's equivalent Oxford and Regent Streets.

Seeing the Northern Lights was one of my things to get done.  Unfortunately it still is.  I booked onto a guided Northern Lights tour and we were coached out to the middle of nowhere, but apparently a middle of nowhere from where the lights had been seen earlier that evening.  Being an astro-photography bod I had questioned the likelihood of actually seeing anything.  To describe the conditions as patchy was being especially generous.  But the guide seemed convinced by the early evening reports.  They say the waiting is the hardest part, and never has a truer word been said.  Every once in a while, the guide would proclaim that he could see them very feintly on the horizon.  We would look, aim cameras and snap away, and then mutter amongst ourselves about how we wanted some of what he was taking...   One hour turned into two, three and then four before the guide admitted defeat.  Northern Light chasing is a game for the patient and the fervent of heart.  You almost have to believe to be rewarded with a vision.

Icelanders have no choice but to be aware of their unique position geologically speaking.  A trip around Reykjavik during daylight just confirms this connection.  Every building seems to have basalt elements, and were basalt has not actually been used, the design reflects this natural heritage instead - the Cathedral (Hallgrinskirkja) and the concert hall are prime examples.

The columner basalt inspired cathedral Hallgrimskirkja

The hexagonal columns and panes of the concert hall  - Volcanic Glass? 

Traveling in a minibus across an extinct shield volcano (Esja) in the snow was definitely meaningful to me.  The vastness and  flatness of the landscape thereabouts spoke to me of runny lavas erupting effusively like vast running sores in the surface of the earth.  I could appreciate the distinction between this and the general perception of volcanoes as large conical things that go bang in a big way.  I'm not totally convinced that other passengers on the trip around the golden circle were as impressed.  The same applied to the first stop - Thingvellir.  Unless you know more or less what to look for, and more or less how to interpret those things, you may be a little underwhelmed by a place were North America and Europe are moving apart so imperceptibly slowly that the movement can only be detected with specialized equipment.  The edge of the rift upon which we stood spoke volumes to me about rifting, drifting and isostatic subsidence, but some of the comments back at the bus hinted at a feeling of being a little underwhelmed.  Ah well, next stop was the famous Geysir.

Thingvellir - Where continents move apart.

I suspect that even in the warmest summer, Geysir is shrouded in mist.  The heat and damp from below ground envelopes everything.  The town itself seems little more than the hotel (immortalized in Desmond Bagley's book Running Blind), the rest stop, cafe and gift shop and the hydrothermal field itself.  The  actual hydrothermal vent after which the town is named (and indeed all other geysers the world over), does nothing more than burble fitfully.  It has not lived up to its name for many years, and seems to be enjoying a tranquil retirement.  I was told by a twinkly eyed bearded Icelander that for years, people (probably at great personal risk) used to throw rocks down the vent to induce Geysir to blow, but then she just stopped.  This smacks of that rather brainless perception that nature is there for our amusement - apparently nature does not like having rocks shoved down her wind pipe and she's decided not to play anymore.  It would seem that one of the frequent seismic events locally altered the geothermal plumbing system.  Now Geysirs younger brother Stokkur holds centre stage boastfully blowing off on average every 7 - 8 minutes - No rocks are required - no one is allowed near enough.  One of the products of this regularity is that there is lots of flowing water thereabouts and in the winter it turns to sheet ice.  In environment fit for Torville and Dean is created, but the majority of Stokkurs were not so impressed.   Interestingly you can find fossils at Geysir and unlike most fossils, these are not millions of years old, but probably only a matter of a few hundred - perfect calcite copies of plants were the mineral rich waters flowed over them.

Stokkur showing off.  Skating rink in the foreground

Tavertine with very recent plant fossils

By now the day was become increasingly wet and dark.  Gullfoss in the almost dark loses something. Although one cannot argue with the power of the place, the day was becoming a battle with increasing rain, increasing winds and rapidly decreasing light.  The driver stopped in the car park and those of us who dared brave the increasingly bad conditions skated across to the viewing point.  Yes it was very beautiful in its half frozen state, but being honest, I probably could have skipped Geysir in order to see this in slightly better light.  Oh well, It will still be there in the summer.

Gullfoss

When time is short, you end up having to carefully manage it.  The weather was overcast but dry the next day and I took the opportunity to look and see what sort of rocks and minerals I could find in and around Reykjavik.  What the locals must have thought of this nutter scavenging bits of rock from the rough sea defences, who knows.  Whatever they thought, they were too polite to say it.  I was looking for examples of Amygdales - volcanic bubbles into which minerals had crystalized.  There were plenty of them and I managed to identify a reasonable selection of them.

Aragonite

Common Opal

Phillipsite

Pitchstone

A Xenolith

A larger xenolith in the sea defenses.

Olivene Phenocrysts in Vesicular Basalt

The plan had been to go to Iceland for a few days and go on a bunch of organized trips as a sort of recce for a future longer trip with hire car.  As it is I'll have to go again just to actually see some ofmthe things I saw!  The second long trip I did, along the south coast was most note worthy because although we went to a lot of places, due to the fog, low light and driving rain, we did not actually see all that many of them.   At Vik, I had a highly recommended Icelandic Lamb Soup, and I walked on the black sand beach.  A little rooting around in a dune came up with a very fresh bit of Obsidian, and the beach walk produced a rounded sample of the much less common flow banded obsidian.  We also journeyed to Iceland's southern most tip - were columner basalt flows could be glimpsed through the mist.  A trip across the lunar landscape at the base of Katla took us to the Myrdals Jokull glacier.  This still has traces of the ash fall from the 2010 eruption of the next door volcano Eyjafjallajokull, and generally, the poor weather and light conditions made the location seem gloomy and brooding - I have to see it on a sunny day really, but like I said earlier, nature is not there for our amusement and she cant be expected to perform on cue.

Myrdals Jokull Glacier

A giant boulder with glacial striations

Beach pebbles at the southern tip of Iceland

So would I go to Iceland again?  100% Yes I would!  I just scratched the surface.  There are two or three good summer trips worth of material just to cover the obvious things.  The geology is superb, as expected, but more than this, I think the people and their relaxed attitude to life was a real eye-opener.  You never heard the squeal of breaks or the angry honk of a horn.  Cars stop for you if you cross a road, even if you're nowhere near a pedestrian crossing.  Energy is clean and abundant.  And the atmosphere of the place, the vibe, is one of sunny optimism.  My most abiding memory is of a helpful young man at the volcano centre giving me advice the morning after my trip to see the Northern Lights - a trip at which the Northern Lights were conspicuous by their absence.  He said "Pro-tip." I was instantly fascinated - I'd never had someone start a sentence with the word pro-tip.  He went on, "Dont pay for one of these expensive trips, just go out beyond the street lights on the seafront or into a park on a clear night.  You'll see the Northern Lights for free."   Now that's helpful, if a little late.  Why could I not have met him on day one?

Iceland on a sunny winters morning

The Solfar Sun Craft by Jon Gunnar Arnason