Iceland: Land of Fire and Ice, Part 2 (Mountains)

Eyjafjörður, #3, Iceland, 2023

Iceland’s Mountains

The mountains of this frigid isle are not particularly tall, the high point being Hvannadalshnjúkur in the southeast at not even 7,000′ (2,110 meters), but they are gorgeously snow-sprinkled, often glaciated, and rise up from essentially sea level.

There are some 30 currently active volcano systems and hundreds of sleeping volcanoes. When they blow, watch out! Perhaps you may recall the major air traffic disruptions in 2010 in Europe due to a giant volcanic ash plume floating eastward across the hemisphere? This was due to the eruption of Eyjafjallajökull. The latest major eruption was in 2021 at Fagradalsfjall resulting in some spectacular lava flows.

Some rowdy plate tectonics activity in the neighborhood causes the earth to move under your feet quite often as well–even if you don’t notice–with thousands of tremors recorded each year. As an example, a quick visit to the Volcano Discovery website shows, in the last 48 hours of this writing, the following: one quake over magnitude 3.0, eight quakes between magnitudes 2.0 and 3.0, and 84 tremors below magnitude 2 (the latter most folks don’t feel–but the farm animals likely perk up).