Gudrun's photos

Icebergs from Jökulsárlón glacial lagoon end up in the sea where they turn in the waves and slowly melt away.

Part of the southern crater row. Moss has colonized the craters but even after nearly 240 years hardly anything grows in the ash. www.vatnajokulsthjodgardur.is/en/areas/laki-eldgja-langisjor/interpretation-and-knowledge/about-laki whc.unesco.org/en/list/1604

I didn't fancy queueing up to go behind the waterfall this year and was rewarded wih a rainbow. In the note a 2016 photo from behind the veil, the parking lot spoils the view.

SSC: Negative Space

The horses had come all the way from the south over the feared Sprengisandur highland crossing. They get a well deserved one week's rest before making the return journey. hFF folks!

seen from Sprengisandur (highland road F26) At 925 km² Hofsjökull is Iceland's 3rd largest glacier. It lies in the geographical middle of the country and covers a large shield volcano with a massive caldera.

On the spit sheltering the lagoon of Lónsfjörður from the open sea. Apart from the many attractive pebbles (among them semi precious stones like jasper) there is also plenty of birdlife- thousands of whooper swans in the lagoon and seabirds like fulmars, puffins and guillemots out at sea. Lónsfjörður not every young swan survives, ravens and skuas also want to live... Fulmarus glacialis

Eystrahorn ( 756m) lies at the eastern end of Lón lagoon and just like Vestrahorn at the western end is part of an ancient volcano, consisting of gabbro and granophyr. de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Krossanesfjall

seen from Höfn Vestrahorn consists of gabbro and granophyr, it was once part of the magma chamber of a long extinct volcano.

CMT9- Sailing/ Ships/ Boats Not many boats around here, no shipping on the river because of drought and the one pleasure boat that's usually moored wasn't there. So here's my attempt at launching a paper boat, first in the bathtub (see note) and then on a blue IKEA tray;-) By that time the boat had turned a bit soggy....

in the rift zone between the Eurasian and American plates. The jump isn't quite as harmless as it looks, see note. hFF, folks!

Herðubreið, the queen of Icelandic mountains - and seat of the gods (many believe this is the Asgard of the sagas). Herðubreið is a 1682m high table mountain (tuya) which erupted under ice age glaciation. At the very top (here covered by cloud) is a crater and some basalt whch made it out of the ice. The mountain with its steep and near symmetrical shape rises 1000m above the vast surrounding highland desert and is visible from afar.

Panorama stitched from 4 photos EXIF: 1/1000 • f/5.6 • 28.0 mm • ISO 100/ LEICA CAMERA AG LEICA Q2/ SUMMILUX 1:1.7/28 ASPH. Askja is a big central volcano in the middle of the Icelandic highlands, consisting of 3 nested calderas. Öskjuvatn (in the background) is Iceland's 2nd deepest lake (220m) and developed in the years/decades after the 1875 eruption when the magma chamber had emptied and the caldera slowly collapsed and filled with groundwater. Viti (Icelandic for hell) in the foreground is a maar, an explosion crater from a phreatic explosion which also happend in 1875. The water is sulphurous and people used to bathe in it. At the moment this is forbidden, as Askja seems to be slowly warming up towards another eruption. There has been an uplift of 35cm in recent times and the alert level has been raised to yellow. Snowfall when we arrived Swiss National Day is celebrated on 01.08, even in Askja;-)

Part of the northern Laki crater row with Síðujökull (part of Vatnajökull) in the background. The Laki fissure eruption of 1783/84 was one of the greatest natural disasters of the last 1000 years. A total of 14,7 km³ of lava flowed from 130 vents, eventually covering 600km². 122 million tonnes of SO² and 15 million tonnes of fluorine were emitted. In Iceland 80% of sheep and over 50% of other livestock died of fluorine poisoning, more than 20% of Icelanders died of starvation. The poisonous cloud covered much of Europe as a dry fog, leading to high excess mortality, crop failures and famine. Temperatures dropped by an average of 1,3°C for 2-3 years, causing an extremely cold winter and enormous flooding after snow melt in spring. www.economist.com/christmas-specials/2007/12/19/the-summer-of-acid-rain whc.unesco.org/en/list/1604 de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laki-Krater

EXIF: Canon EOS 6D/ EF24-70mm f/4L IS USM/ 1/80 • f/8.0 • 38.0 mm • ISO 250 Fagrifoss (literally: the beautiful waterfall) is near Road F206 to the Laki craters. Here the river Geirlandsá drops 80m into a canyon which is shot through with basalt dykes

SSC/ MM: Spraydose/ spray can

CMT8: Gardening A tough one living in a flat in town with no balcony and no houseplants whatsoever! I gave up on them long ago because they either died from neglect or thrived so well that they grew much too fast;-) All I have left is a watering can.

A steady procession of visitors, 10.000 in the first 48 hours of the new eruption;-) www.visitreykjanes.is/en/volcano-eruption/eruption-information/webcams-from-the-eruption-site hFF, folks!