Everyone knows Iceland’s scenery is special, a striking terrain of geysers, glaciers and active volcanoes. But how did it become so? On an exciting trip around the island with volcano expert Tamsin Mather, Olly Beckett comes to appreciate the extent of Iceland’s unique landscapes—and what recent eruptions and geological shifts mean for its future.
“Please do not photograph that mountain,” our guide Lárus Ástvaldsson requests as we drive past a particularly prominent peak. “It is a giant. If Putin discovers him, then it will be the first thing he attacks.”
This joke about the Russian president’s belligerent ways is delivered with typical Icelandic dryness, and other quips follow while we explore the geological wonderland of Lárushomeland on a tour that will take us across the island’s southern regions. And providing alternative explanations of why the landscapes are so dramatic and active, we’re joined by Professor Tamsin Mather, a UK-based scientist bringing her expertise and tales of her life as an adventuring volcanologist.
Our first stop is a narrow strip of land where the North American and European continents very visibly pull apart in a gully. This is Þingvellir National Park, once the gathering place of the annual Alþingi, or Parliament, during which leaders from across Iceland met between the years 730 and 1798.
I first visited this continental parting of ways 25 years ago. Since then Iceland has stretched about 20 inches.
Tamsin has a cold, but it’s her enthusiasm for Iceland’s geology that’s proving infectious. For experts like her, creases and folds in the rocks speak a complex story, and I appreciate the skill in interpreting it so it’s understandable to amateur geologists such as myself.
While other tours in popular Þingvellir hurry along, ours does not—one of the hallmarks of this New Scientist Discovery Tour. Tamsin stops and excitedly points at a rock that must often go easily ignored. We gather around and marvel at the pahoehoe, a thickly corrugated rock that indicates where hot basaltic lava wrinkled the cooling crust above, and share Tamsin’s excitement when she tells us that just 10,000 years ago we would have been stood on molten rock oozing over an area of 77 square miles (200 square kilometers).
Using superjeeps—which look not entirely unlike Monster Trucks—we access Þórsmörk, a wide valley carpeted with vivid green moss and a wide stone riverbed. Craggy, cracked slopes rise either side, and through some of those cracks, waterfalls spill from great heights.
Further, now, into Iceland’s barren interior and west to Geysir geothermal area, where I watch in awe as the planet’s formidable power noisily squirts hot water 65 feet (20 meters) into the frigid air, or quietly heats steaming pools of myriad colors at scalding temperatures that encourage me to keep my distance. As the odorous sulphur-tainted mist hangs in clouds above us Tamsin explains the principles of what we’re witnessing. “The water is geothermally heated,” she tells us. “It’s stored in an underground cauldron and heats until a boiling flashpoint occurs and it explodes in the form of a geyser.” Geothermally-heated water is an abundant resource for Iceland; 90 percent of homes here are heated by it, keeping energy costs low.
Again, we linger while others rush, enjoying having the landscape interpreted for us before we continue west along what has been termed the ‘Golden Circle’; a popular tourist route which ties today’s sights together. Ice Age glaciation carved the deep and wide canyon through which the Hvítá river tumbles 105 feet (32 meters) as Gullfoss Waterfall, one of Iceland’s most iconic sights and one which thunders so violently that it causes me to pause before hesitatingly approaching along a path made slippery by constant mist. Watching the river turn from relatively sedate to roaring cataract requires time and many angles to fully appreciate the scale.
Every evening we scurry into stylish hotels which squat low against gusting windstorms that are battering the island. While the weather rages outside we’re treated to Tamsin’s illustrated talks. She explains how geological processes are made obvious in Iceland; tectonic activity here in 1963 even created an island, Surtsey, that—at 20 miles (32 kilometers) off the coast— is easily visible from the southern shore.
Following these talks we reflect on the day’s learnings over dinners that frequently feature fresh fish from Icelandic waters, served with vegetables grown in geothermally heated hothouses. Lárus tells us a centuries-old tale of a family who abandoned their home due to geothermal activity, leaving freshly-caught shark hanging from the ceiling. When they returned weeks later the shark had dried and fermented, making it edible. This tale concluded with Lárus flourishing a small pot of fermented shark, I tried a piece while closing my nose to the strong ammonia smell, making the experience slightly more palatable.
Using superjeeps for this stretch—which look not entirely unlike Monster Trucks—we turn north from the southern section of Iceland’s encircling Route 1 and into Þórsmörk, a wide valley carpeted with vivid green moss and a wide stone riverbed. Craggy, cracked slopes rise either side, and through some of those cracks, waterfalls spill from great heights.
It’s a gray day and we can’t see the mountaintops, but the gloom adds atmosphere to this forbidding place. It’s easy to imagine how legends—including giants at risk from Putin—are born here. I’d been particularly looking forward to visiting Þórsmörk—well away from the capital Reykjavík and the busy Golden Circle—and getting a taste of adventure as we clamber into caves and stand before the tongue of Gígjökull glacier.
The glacier is part of Eyjafjallajökull volcano, which erupted in 2010 and spread ash over most of Europe, causing major issues to flight routes. During the eruption’s early days, Tamsin received calls from the press asking her to travel to Iceland to report on the action. Being on maternity leave in the UK, she had to decline—but that didn’t stop her from scraping samples of ash from her skylight in Oxford.
At one spot, a fresh rockfall reveals crumbling boulders. Picking up loose pieces of rock, Tamsin theorizes that they’re probably from a volcanic bomb that cracked during cooling. “It’s a nicely preserved fire fountain,” she explains. “The glassy outside and bubbly inside tell me that the rock cooled rapidly from about 1,000°C [1832°F].” Such drama depicted in such a tiny piece of the planet.
But another volcano may be likely to attract attention, perhaps very soon. Poking above the Mýrdalsjökull ice cap in southern Iceland and easily visible from Route 1, Katla is, according to Lárus’s colorful retellings of Icelandic folklore, named after a witch who occasionally flies into a rage, causing the volcano’s destructive eruptions.
Katla last flew into a rage in 1918. Volcanologists predict that we’re overdue another performance although, as Tamsin explains, volcanoes do not necessarily keep to a timetable.
A booming tourism industry has been built around the island’s geologic marvels too; in fact, tourism has become the economy’s number one contributor.
“Historically, Katla has erupted every 40 to 80 years,” Tamsin tells us. “During big eruptions, vast amounts of tephra (volcanic ash) can be thrown into the air and the glacier above melts, sometimes causing tumultuous mud flows—or jökulhlaups to use the Icelandic word.”
Iceland’s geology is set on fast-forwards. As well as seeing it in action in places such as Geysir you can also see its recent destructiveness on the Reykjanes Peninsula, which juts out of western Iceland and is the final stop of our tour. Here, in November 2023, a state of emergency was declared in the town of Grindavík following increased seismic activity and the subsequent eruption of Sundhnúkur volcano.
I was impressed by vast stone embankments that were hastily built to stem the lava flow at Grindavík’s edge. However, nothing could be done about the shifting ground. In certain places the ground had dropped by a few feet, splitting buildings and roads. This was a humbling reminder of how our planet’s power can so easily shrug off humanity’s infrastructure.
Since that eruption between November 2023 and June 2024, the town’s population fell from over 3,000 to around 100 today. A special tax in Iceland ensures that residents are found new accommodation during devastating events such as this. But it’s not all bad news.
“Eruptions build and ice erodes,” Tamsin explains. “When Katla blew in 1918, the resultant flows added point five cubic miles [0.5 mi³/2 km3) of material to the downstream plains and extended this land several kilometers into the sea.”
I ask Tamsin why Iceland is so active. “In addition to being on the seam of two tectonic plates, the island is on top of a mantle hotspot,” she tells me, describing these long funnels between molten rock and the Earth’s surface, and explaining how they partly manifest as volcanoes. These hotspots exist in few other places on Earth—Hawai’i, the Galapagos and the Canary Islands being other examples. But there are plenty of other tectonically active places. “Africa is unzipping itself along the Rift Valley,” Tamsin says in her typical way of describing complex geology in ways even I can understand. As Africa widens as a result of this rift the craggy, lava-coated landscapes typified in Iceland may well fill the gap.
Iceland’s story may well contain many horrific chapters when geology caused utter devastation. Now, thanks to technology and investment, Earth’s destructive power can at least be better predicted and more safely managed.
A booming tourism industry has been built around the island’s geologic marvels too; in fact, tourism has become the economy’s number one contributor. “We had 1,000 years of hardship here. Now, at last we can have a good time,” Lárus concludes before we part ways. Us travelers to our high energy bills, and he to his hot tub—filled with free hot water straight from the ground.
The writer was a guest on New Scientist Discovery Tours’ ‘Land of fire and ice: Iceland’ trip.
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At his happiest while hiking, travel writer Olly Beckett has set foot on all seven continents and almost 100 countries. A fan of the planet's peaks, he is also the publisher of Mountains Magazine and believes that days of adventure should be rewarded with evenings of indulgent spa time. He’s written for titles such as National Geographic Traveller UK, Fodor’s and Travel + Leisure.
