10/08

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Geological wonders

As soon as we get on the road we stop. There’s just so much to see here, it’s crazy. Around every bend is another hot spring or volcano. We drive for miles and miles over twisted lava fields and endless black deserts.

Sometimes it feels like we are in Mongolia. Other times Wales. Then there are empty stretches of nothingness where we all fall silent. Just as it’s beginning to get monotonous a huge glacier will appear or we’ll have to cross a fjord. It’s brilliant. And Lottie is more than capable of getting us over, round, through, and above all this stuff.

The emphasis of our project is firmly on the human stories of people living on fault lines but the geography is too amazing not to do a post about some of it. From around the Myvatn, Krafla and Askja regions, here is a very small selection of some of the stuff we have been driving past.

Honeycomb rock formations at Hljodaklettar:

Bubbling mudpots at Namafjall:

Steaming crater at Krafla:

Viti – a tephra crater at Askja – a milky blue geothermally heated lake we went swimming in that’s meant to be amazing for your skin (but a bit spooky):