9-19-17 SELFOSS, ICELAND: It was still raining this morning, but there was less wind, and it was warmer. We left the hotel for our first stop on the 'Golden Circle'. After pix at Thingvellir Lake, we drove to Gulfoss for a magnificent waterfall. It has two drops and moves tons of water per minute. We took pix from the intermediate level first, then walked down to a lower site for more pix and got soaked by the mist. Lastly we walked up to the top for yet more pix and the gift shop where Judy got a new sweater.
Redwings, Eurasian birds rarely seen in the US, are prepping for their migration. We saw them many places.
Thingvellir Lake, Iceland's biggest.
A rugged horizon near the lake.
Gullfoss falls, the lower half generating a lot of mist.
The upper and lower falls, getting close means getting wet. The water is from glacial melt and rain.
Geysir is a few minutes away and has many hot springs and geysers. Guess where the term ‘geyser’ comes from? The original Geysir is not performing now with any regularity or frequency since a recent earthquake rattled the area, but another geyser at Geysir has picked up the wetwork. It was surrounded by camera-toting crowds before each eruption. There are many minor hot springs steaming away, some with dramatic blue coloring. All these sites have a gift shop, restaurant and big crowds.
Little geyser.
Big geyser with fans.
Big geyser sends the water high and in a spiral.
We left for lunch at a farm restaurant where we had excellent trout and homemade ice cream. Cows are fed their lunch and milked in a different part of the building. After lunch we played with the farm dogs and admired the Icelandic horses. The rain had ended and the sun was shining through the clouds.
Efstidalur is a working farm and has a small horse herd, lots of cows and sheep and sheep dogs.
Another redwing.
Our last stop of the day was at Thingvellir National Park, which is in the rift valley between the separating North American and European tectonic plates. Iceland itself sits on the Mid Atlantic Ridge, which is the structure on the ocean bottom, left by the retreating tectonic plates as they move away from each other, thereby creating the Atlantic Ocean. As the plates move away from each other, magma from the Earth’s mantle fills the gap, and the Atlantic gets wider by an inch or so each year.
On Iceland, the space between the plates is stretched and rifted as it is pulled apart. The stretched out terrain is ruptured and fissured and sinks downward. This sunken structure is called a ‘graben’.
Iceland is also located on a ‘Hot Spot’ where the earth’s Crust is thin and the Mantle layer of the earth is close to the surface and magma from the Mantle frequently spills out onto the surface as lava, creating new land.
Thingvellir National Park is also culturally significant as it is the site of the first clan gatherings after Iceland was initially colonized in 874 by the Scandinavians. The clans met and camped here yearly to make laws and settle disputes. All significant political and cultural events and anniversaries are celebrated here.
Thingvellir National Park is on the rifting zone of Iceland where the Eurasion and North American tectonic plates are separating. This is one spot where the lava has fissured.
Thingvellir National Park with a series of waterfalls and a river through the rift zone.
By dinner time the sun was out and the rain and wind had stopped. At 10 PM it was still only partly cloudy, and we had an aurora, not big and fancy, but clearly enough to be a demonstration of what it’s about. I took some pix with the iPhone with an aurora app that are of fairly poor quality. A couple people in the group got good pix with tripods and long exposure times. Hopefully they will share, and I can show good images.
A sample of the Aurora we saw. The show lasted a couple of hours. The red things are satellite dishes.
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