The purpose of the trip was to work with collaborators at the University of Iceland. My graduate student Emma joined me after the first weekend (which I spent with my friends Siggi and Malla), as she is currently studying samples from the 2011 Grismvötn eruption (supplied to us by Siggi). So my stories are limited to the environs of Reykjavik. I´ll recount them mostly as vignettes (jottings from my notebook).
Maybe I’ll start with Reykjavik. I’ve always loved the colorful houses and roofs, but my summer visits had failed to impress upon me the startling backdrop provided by the Quaternary and late Tertiary manifestations of the mid-Atlantic ridge... during the winter they are nicely highlighted by snow and can seem startlingly close. The first set of pictures below doesn’t do them justice because I was more interested in capturing the sweep of the landscape as viewed from the tower of Hallgrimskirkja, the modern cathedral that overlooks the downtown.
You can get a somewhat better sense in the upper right photo below, taken across the lake that separates the downtown from the University. I also included a picture of my favorite basalt statue ... I think of it as the essence of a volcanologist (head in lava).
The houses in the older part of town are quite distinctive. You know by now that I like colored houses. But many of Reykjavik’s colored houses are made of corrugated iron. I’ve come to appreciate the practicality of this as a building material. Not only is Iceland challenged on the wood front, but also the combination of frequent wind and abundant flying grit provide the perfect recipe for sandblasting. Also challenging is the corrosive nature of the salt sea air, however, so I guess there is no perfect Icelandic building material.
Reykjavik is full of reminders of Viking ancestors, from the statue of Leifur Eiriksson in front of the Hallgrimskirkja to the statue of the first settler Ingolfur Arnarson in the city center, to the network of streets in the old town named for Norse gods, including the trickster god Loki. Although DNA evidence is showing that the Icelanders have a lot of Irish in them (the Vikings stopped off in Ireland en route to Iceland), and Siggi’s friend Gisli’s theory is that the reason the Icelanders actually wrote down the sagas (thereby preserving a lot of Norse history and culture) is that they inherited (or learned) the Irish art of story telling. Gisli should know, as he is an expert in the sagas, on the faculty at the University. He also organized a spectacular exhibit in a lovely old building in Reykjavik that features many of the original manuscripts with the sagas, manuscripts that have been gradually returned to Iceland from Denmark. Gisli gave Siggi and me a wonderful guided tour... when we reached the news reels recording the return of the first (and oldest) of the manuscripts in 1971, Siggi started looking for himself - apparently he was part of the Boy Scout color guard assembled at the docks to meet the Danish ship.
The old manuscripts stand in contrast to one of the newest contributions from Denmark - the new modern music hall, designed by Ólafur Elíasson, a Danish-Icelandic artist who also designed the wonderful rainbow bridge on the art museum in Aarhus (see the January blog).
Now lest you think that the weather is always sunny in Iceland... we were also treated to a blizzard in the middle of the week... it was lovely! Swirling snow against the early morning sky turned into a full day of high winds and blowing snow. Emma and I were staying in a nice apartment owned by the Nordic Volcanological Institute... as we got ready to walk into the University, Emma, my British student, excitedly told me that she had never been in such a snow storm and that she had put on all her clothes for the walk (I think she said that she wore two layers of everything except for 5 layers on top and three on her head!). It was a bit of a cold walk, but only because of blowing snow on my unprotected face. However, being Iceland, most people were in at work and the lovely Askja building (home of the Earth Sciences... lower photos below) felt snug and cozy with light filtering through the snow piled on the sloping windows. The building even has its own little cafe, so we didn’t have to brave the snow to find lunch (on other days we went to the student union, which serves excellent and reasonably priced hot lunches, among other things like skyr, the Icelandic version of yogurt for which all visitors develop an addiction).
The snow lasted only a day but the wind lasted longer and transported a surprising (to me at least) amount of volcanic ash from the 2011 Grismvötn eruption over 200 km to Reykjavik, leaving a pronounced brown layer on the snow... in fact, the ash was a surprisingly persistent feature when the wind was blowing, causing a gray murk downwind and limiting SE views from the ski area (more about that below).
It was also fun to immerse in Iceland for a bit. As is evident from the photo above, the Askja building is a lovely place to spend time, and there are lots of friendly volcanologists to talk to. I’ve been trying (not particularly successfully) to learn a little Icelandic, and I had several chances for immersion. Let’s see, there was the play that I attended with Siggi, Malla, daughter Anna and her boyfriend Snorri - Anna’s twin brother was one of the stars of the play, which was Dr. Faustus by Gertrude Stein. In Icelandic. Luckily the acting, costumes and set were excellent, so it was enjoyable even though I didn’t understand anyone except the dog (who kept saying “Takk fyrir”, which means thank you!). I also watched an episode of Borgen, a Danish TV series that is popular in the UK (although I have yet to get started on it - I have borrowed DVDs to get caught up on another very popular Danish TV series called, ominously, The Killing - a detective series). So I watched a Danish TV show with Icelandic subtitles (Malla helped me to follow the story line). And then there was the Open Day at the University... my astronomer/glaciologist friend Snaevarr had brought his portable planetarium (which he usually takes around to schools). I attended one show (in Icelandic) and was so mesmerized that I went to two more (each one was different... planetarium shows have changed a lot since I was little - amazing what you can do with computers :)).
And then there were excursions out of Reykjavik... to see some small “rootless cones” on an older lava flow just south of Siggi and Malla’s house (they are now the site of quarries, just like the cinder cones in Oregon).
And of course, as advertised in the title, skiing on the mid-Atlantic ridge with Siggi and Malla. The ski area lies just south of Reykjavik on hyaloclastite ridges formed by subglacial eruptions during the last Ice Age. Not a lot of vertical relief but fun skiing and fabulous views (note the plume in the bottom right picture - from a big geothermal plant that provides power and hot water for Reykjavik).
The brilliantly clear skies held through until the next morning, which meant that during the early morning bus ride to the airport we were treated to a spectacular sunrise that filled half the horizon with dawn light. We then had a scenic flight across southern Iceland, with wonderful views of the active rift zone and the very active volcano Hekla (the elongate snow-covered mountain to the left of the photo... note the veil of Grismvötn ash still hovering at, I assume, the tropopause). So what a surprise it was to land at Gatwick airport in a snowstorm!
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