The view from highway 54 driving up the south edge of the Snæfellsnes Peninsula shows flat coastal plains with farms and pasture for sheep, cattle and horses. There are lava flow cliffs on the north edge of the plain. Many of the cliffs are from tertiary lava flows more than 3.1 million years old.
Farm house at the base of coastal cliffs and pasture on the coastal plain. The steep cliffs were once at the Atlantic coast line and have edges steepened by sea erosion over thousands and millions of years. In post-ice age times (<25,000 years ago), the coastal plain was raised above sea level during the isostatic uplift of the Atlantic and the North American plate in the region.
The coastline and beach at Ytri Tunga. Lighter colored sand may be the result of higher density fragments of olivine crystals (magnesium sulfate) and plagioclase from a nearby volcano that erupted (5,000-8,000 years ago) that was rich in these minerals (Búðaklettur.) Erosion and water flow could account for its location on this beach. Most of the beach sand we observed on our Iceland trip was black due to the high basalt content (rich in iron and magnesium).
Harbor seal (Phoca vitulina) on rock at Ytri Tunga
Icelandic sheep on pasture next to homes at Ytri Tunga.
Eroding volcanic coastline near the village of Arnarstapi. Multiple lava flows originating from Snæfellsjökull and related volcanoes in the Snæfellsnes Volcanic Belt have occurred in this area from 4,000 to 8,000 years ago, and older lava flows are also present in the region. The cone-shaped volcano in the background (Stapafell) is a palagonitic pyramid volcano 526m high that is greater than 11,000 year old and less than 700,000 years old.
Eroded basalt coastline near Hellmar.
The interwoven pattern of eroded columnar basalt at the coast near Hellmar tells a story of successive periods of lava flow with cooling periods.
Gatklettur (stone arch or bridge) of columnar basalt near Hellmar. Visitors with biology/medical education look at the eroded rock pattern and often see a pelvis with pelvic canal, obturator foramen, pubis, ilium and ischium.
Our bus sits in the bottom of Hólahólar crater. The view is from the top crater edge.
Elin Konradsdottir (far left) was our main Icelandic guide during the Sky and Telescope tour. She is the best guide we have ever had on any trip and was a wealth of information on Iceland history, culture, geography, and geology. She punctuated many of our days on tour by singing a theme-appropriate song and showed us her favorite places to buy books and yarn in Reykjavik.
