From Oklahoma to the Land of the Midnight Sun

Thursday, July 31, 2008

Laki Craters

The main part of today was spent at the Laki craters. In this area of the Icelandic interior, a large fissure broke open in 1783, and flooded Iceland with the largest lava flow ever recorded. As the story goes, after eight days of lava flow, a local priest gave a sermon condemning Icelanders for causing this disaster. God was paying Iceland back for their vile behavior. As the flow approached his village - it miracously stopped. His speech is known as the "Sermon of Fire".

In this area, there ar over 30 lava craters that spewed lava two hundred years ago.

This is a picture of the molten lava fields in the area. The lava rocks are now moss covered.

How Many Waterfalls does Iceland have?

In case you are wondering the answer to that question, I believe it is infinity. Every day, Helgi, our guide, takes us to new waterfalls that are simply beautiful. This first waterfall can be seen from our hotel room.

The Iceberg Lagoon

The highlight of the day was a trip to the Iceberg Lagoon. Here, all the glaciers break apart and fall into the ocean. We took a trip out in the lagoon to drive among the icebergs. It was beautiful. Blake, great location for casino - no sod roofs, may leak during wet periods.

The ICE in ICEland

We finally found the ice. We went out east and hit the glaciers. Approximately 10 % of Iceland is covered by Glaciers. They are currently shrinking. But, that is normal. It seems that Iceland has had 37 periods of known glaciation. They shrink and swell. This particular area has been very active. In 1996, a volcano below the glacier erupted violently, causing massive melting and flooding.