Blog 6/28/16

with No Comments

Today we started our ascent of Helgafell at 8am. The hike up was much quicker than Eldfell and the weather was clear so we had an amazing view at the top. We recorded GPS data starting at sea level all the way to the top of the peak. After hiking Helgafell we stopped in the town and had a quick lunch at a restaurant called Gött. Several of us tried the fish of the day, and at the risk of fulfilling every travel stereotype, a food picture is attached.

After our meal we caught the ferry to the mainland. We reunited with our vehicle and then embarked on a one and a half hour car ride through Vík to our Airbnb in Kirkjubæjarklaustur. We stopped at the Black Sand Beach near Vík and treated ourselves to coffee at Svarta Fjaran before going down to the water. Instead of sand the beach was covered in darks stones smoothed to perfection by years of weathering. The beach also has a unique basalt formation called columnar basalt, which is caused by lava cracking as it cools. A few of us took an unplanned wade in the seawater when the tide rushed in unexpectedly. Luckily we were only meters from fresh socks.

We are preparing to sample on the Glacier tomorrow afternoon. In the morning we will journey to downtown to procure distilled water for our soil protocols as well as groceries.

 

IMG_1676
Black Sand Beach was beautiful and overcast.
FullSizeRender
Delicious ´fish of the day´

Blog 6/26/16

with 2 Comments

Today we woke up early in order to catch a 9:45am ferry to the island of Heimaey.  Fortunately no one got sea sick, granted the ride was only a half an hour in fairly calm waters. Upon arrival we headed to our Airbnb for the night, which is a beautiful house just a few blocks from the harbor. Our hosts were incredibly nice and told us about the local pub and where there are interesting places on the island. Rain and clouds engulfed us all morning so we waited for it to clear up a little. After lunch we geared up and headed to the harbor to start streaming. The clouds hung low over the mountains creating an peaceful atmosphere over the fishing boats. We started streaming a meter above the water and walked from there up the the lava fields. The rocks were covered in moss with lupin stealing space in every crack. We could see where houses use to be before the 1973 eruption of Eldfell. We knew a lot about the eruption from the book Island on Fire which made the hike much more interesting. The hike included some walking along the road and then a steep ascent up the volcano. As we started walking up the wind picked up and blew rain into our faces. The summit was a scree trail which made hiking a bit more difficult. We took altitude, temperature and GPS coordinates at the top and then took our soil samples. We all stuck our hands into the soil on the side of the crater, enjoying the warmth. We took some time on the way down looking at the different rocks. There were red, black, orange, brown and yellow, all of varying textures. We walked back to the harbor to finish streaming and the headed back to our house for the night. We went to the pub our hosts suggested called 900 Grillhús. Here we enjoyed fresh seafood, fish, pizza and burgers which watching some soccer. Our day has finished with some data uploading, tech support and relaxing.

Our Airbnb on Heimaey.
Our Airbnb on Heimaey.
A view of the city.
A view of the city.

Lupin & Heimaey

Charlie and Gail reading our map (with Tara in the background).
Charlie and Gail reading our map (with Tara in the background).
Climbing of the side of Eldfell.
Climbing of the side of Eldfell.
Taking samples at on the rim o.f Eldfell
Taking samples at on the rim of Eldfell.

Taking soil samples on Eldfell.

Our first day in the field

with No Comments

Today was our first day “in the field”. We started with a short visit to the Hellisheidi geothermal power station located just outside of Reykjavik. This is the largest combined power and heat geothermal plant in Iceland and the second largest in the world, 99% of the buildings in Reykjavik are heated by district hot water loop that originates here. The tremendous amount of heat stored in the ground under Iceland makes the energy economy very different here, all forms of fossil fuel are shipped here via barge making them very expensive. On the other hand hot water is plentiful, and electricity made from it inexpensive enough that it’s cost-effective to make hydrogen (many gas stations have hydrogen pumps) and to smelt bauxite into aluminum.

After a quick lunch and some hardware/software work we left for Pingvellir national park and UNESCO World Heritage Site. Pingvellir straddles the mid-Atlantic ridge making it an easy place to take a short leap from the North American plate to the European plate and to explore an important part of Iceland’s history. Iceland has one of the world’s oldest parliaments which was begun at Pingvellir in 930 CE. The park has well maintained trails, informative signage (in Icelandic and English), and many geological and historical features. We took our ambiance platforms and split into two groups each of which recorded a separate track around the park (visualization to follow). One detail worth noting is that it costs 200 ISK to pee (about 1.60 USD) at the visitor’s center but there are nice small lavatories spread around the park which are free.

Tomorrow we head to Heimaey, the largest island in the Vestmannaeyjar archipelago off the south coast.

img_2287 a-img_2248 a-img_2503 a-img_2445 a-img_2382 img_2443

(cp)

Daily Blog 6/24/2016

with No Comments

Powered almost exclusively by La Mex and Gulzar’s the EC contingent embarked on the Icelandic Field Studies trip today! (6/24/2016) We left a spectacularly stormy Indiana to fly to JFK where a subsection of the group spent a couple of hours in NYC looking for a 7.2 volt 1800 miliamp battery. (We finally found one at Tinkersphere) Following a mandatory airline shuffle and confusion period, we were finally on our way! We learned that when an airport is the size of the familiar Dayton airport but handles multiple international flights, bad things happen with luggage times. About an hour and a half of waiting around later(without water fountains, we strangely couldn’t find any), we found and counted our 12 TSA inspected bags and were off! Some of us met Lupin for the first time on our way to Bonus, and all of us ooh’ed and aah’ed at the giant hot water pipes. We were able to get all the topographic maps we needed at IÐNÚ The rest of the day was pretty low-key as the group rested and got used to the 12am brightness.

That’s all for today but more tomorrow! We will be at Pingvellir and the Hellisheidi Geothermal plant tomorrow.

Almost out the door

with No Comments

This week was very busy. First of all I pretty much finalized the maps we have here, cutting, taping, folding and laminating them so they are ready for use in the field.

We have field day Friday where we split into two groups and collected data at several points. For this I sketched maps of the area that included all roads but only a few labels in order to do a little navigation practice while collecting data.