Theme: geology

Wednesday was dedicated to a field trip organized around destinations of geological interest. Among the destinations were the Geysir area, the waterfall Gullfoss, and finally Þingvellir (pronounced Thingvellir), which resides on the rift between the European and American tectonic plates.

We stepped into the bus for the trip that would take most of the day.

The first destination was the Geysir area.

This is where the hot spring originally called Geysir resides.

The common noun originates in the name of this particular hot spring.

It has not been active in decades. During the period of its activity, it could shoot water as high as 80 meters into the air.

There were several other hot springs in the area.

One of the geysirs in the area was active, shooting pillars of water into the air every few minutes.

In the picture, our group has gathered to wait for the geysir.

Our patience was rewarded.

Usually, the phrase "geological timescale" brings up mental images of slow processes, but this particular one was too fast for my reflexes at first.

After a few failed attempts, I was able to capture a video of one of these bursts. [video: 46 sec, 3 MB].

As can be heard on the video, our luck with the weather continued — it was a very windy day, 20 meters per second was not uncommon.

Hot springs come in many different sizes.

On the way out of the area, there was the Little Geysir, less than one meter across. (The water was boiling.)