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Iceland - the home of Geysir

Within easy reach to the east of Reykjavik, Iceland's capital, are three major geological sites. The last page introduced the first of these at Thingvellir, this page has the second - geysers - and the Gullfoss waterfall is to come. Geysers can occur where the earth's surface is so thin that water and steam may be forced through it to spurt out in an eruption of boiling water. Our word geyser comes from the first of these spounts to be named - Geysir, meaning to gush in Old Norse. Now all such spouts are known as geysers. They are not common, mainly confined to Kamchatka, New Zealand, Chile and Yellowstone Park. Strokkur is one of the most regular and frequent in the world, erupting every 8 to 10 minutes. This is not actually Geysir, which has been largely inactive over the last 100 years, but one of its neighbours called Strokkur The landscape in the area of Geysir A steaming stream The nearby Little Geysir Strokkur in its quiescent phrase Bubbling vent Sulphurous deposits along a stream Water swirling and rising... ...and beginning to spout Another pool simmering... ... and suddenly steam spurts out Strokkur erupting Three angles on a hot water spout Here an eruption is beginning Water and steam erupt - four metres Ten metres, and the wind... ...catches the steam and spay Steam drifting away The pool is again quiet Water beginning to boil The next page takes you to the third and most dramatic of the three special attractions linked by the geology of the area - the huge waterfall called Gullfoss which tumbles into the fault line.

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The last page was about the first of these three geological features - Thingvellir Away from all this cold and wet to food presentation in Vietnam Another sulphurous place 12,000 feet higher up in Tenerife Or go to the page which was added one year ago.

Saturday 30th December 2017