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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 41m

Vllt mach ich mal ein zweitstudium 👀

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

oh my god this took around 50 minutes of posting 🥲

Reposted by Bekki

Rico Grimm @ricogrimm.de · 1h

hatte firefox verlassen, weil andere browser schöner und schneller waren

aber seit firefox vertikale tabs hat, bin ich wieder zurück und sehr zufrieden. flott, schick, privat.

nutzt firefox statt google chrome klone – kleiner schritt, große wirkung

www.firefox.com/de/

Jetzt den schnellsten Firefox aller Zeiten herunterladen

Der neue Firefox: schnellere Seitenladezeiten, weniger Speicherverbrauch und vollgepackt mit neuen Funktionen.

www.firefox.com

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

The tiny bit of mountain peeking out of the clouds there is the infamous Eyjafjallajökull

Eyjafjallajökull in the distance above some clouds

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

Ok it worked again, nice 🙌

After another half-hour drive, we finally reached our tiny cottage and ate dinner. The landscape was, as you can already see on the waterfall pictures, completely changed by now. And in the distance, we could already see the next change coming

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

For some reason i cant upload video files anymore, getting processing errors. Trying again in this post

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

While driving somewhere off the main road, we accidentally stumbled over the widest waterfall of Iceland, Selfoss. We only noticed it by the mist coming of the falls, which we mistook initially for a hot spring. Once we investigated, we found ourselves with this gorgeous view:

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

The day was far from over, we still needed to drive to Hellishólar Campsite, which is around 140 km distance, which, on Icelands ring road, takes around 2 hours. But of course we didn't went there directly

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

On the hike back to our car, we went south around Fagradalsfjall, between the tiny hill Einbúl and Seiskál, crossing the Borgarhraun lava field. As it is around 7000 years old, life has taken root there again quite successfully

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

Wanna see some hot stuff?
Here you can see some flickering air right above the lava, indicating that it is indeed still hot.
I later looked up some more information about this recent eruption and it basically stopped some two weeks before our arrival. Until today, there was no eruption in the area.

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

There is no way to tell where a lava flow will stop, depending on the force of the eruption it is sometimes possible to direct it, but overall, it is such a violent force of nature. From where we approached, the lava was some 2 to 3 m high. A week later we found out how tiny of a lava field that was

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

We went down the serpentine to get as close as possible to the lava field. It is a surreal look. It just lays there, unbothered by everything.

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

Also, look at this tiny island in a sea of frozen lava:

A small hill completely surrounded by a lava field

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 1h

We stayed there and rested for some minutes, hoping to catch some fresh lava, but apart from some smoke we were out of luck

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

After we reached Geldingadalur viewpoint, we went sharply to the left, towards the more recent eruption site of the Sundhnúksgígar crater row. There is a nice vantage point still up on Fagradalsfjall, which presented us with this incredible overview of the crater row:

Overview of the Sundhnúksgígar crater row and the surrounding lava field

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

Of course, this can be very dangerous, even on years old lava fields there might still be glowing hot lava under the cooled down, hard lava.
It is only safe to climb on lava fields that were officially announced as safe (seems like i'm stating the obvious but yeah).

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

The thing with the very smooth lava (and also the not so smooth lava) is that it is a fascinating sight. So every once in a while, tourists get attracted by it, meaning that they try and climb the lava

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

As you can see in the picture here, the lava, once it gets a little bit colder than it is when exiting the earth, can get very smooth and flat. Once it cools down more, it tends to crack because of the underlying tension or pressure from new lava or the entire ground moving around bc earthquakes

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

The highlight of the red hiking path is reaching Geldingadalur volcano. It was the center of the 2021 eruptions, and, while today it is quite calm up there, some heat must still be trapped under the lava, with some smoke coming from somewhere? Or is it evaporated water? Hard to say

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

Farther up the hill, I took a short clip which further shows the smoothness of the lava, which almost looks like a piece of asphalt tbh

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

The lava here was a mix of, smooth, but broken up plates, and lots of finer, almost gravel like lava that was frozen in place. From the smaller, wave like forms that look a bit like the skin of a troll, I would guess that this lava was of lower viscosity, meaning more like water less like honey.

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

You can see how I struggled with my EOS R50 to capture the different shades the lava can take. Here is another example:

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

The first great vantage point was right before the serpentine that lead up to Stórhóll hill. Here, the lava from an eruption was flowing down the steep hill and presented us this view:

View over a lava field that flowed into Nátthagi valley

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

So on this sweet Thursday morning, we went to explore those two recently active sites. There is a beautiful trail that leads up to Geldingadalur, which is the red one on the left of the map.

A map of the Fagradalsfjall volcano area with a red, green and blue hiking trail leading around the area.

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Bekki @rebexter.bsky.social · 2h

Between Keilir and the blue lagoon (Bláa Lónið) lies the Svartsengi volcanic system. The two most recent eruptions there were from the Fagradalsfjall volcano and the Sundhnúksgígar crater row. Fagradalsfjall was recently active from 2019 until 2023. There is some breathtaking imagery here:

Image from wikipedia of the Fagradalsfjall 2021 eruption in March

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