If you are looking for something more adventurous and explosive on your travels, you will definitely want to check out the Geysir Geothermal Area in Iceland. I know what you are thinking, is geyser spelled correctly here? In this post I will be referring to it as geysir, because the name geysir came from the Icelandic verb geysa which means to gush. In fact it is from the Old Norse language. Isn’t that cool? I bet you did not think you would get a fun vocabulary lesson when you clicked on this page!
To give you a bit of history on this area as well, it has been estimated by scientists that the region has been active for about 10,000 years. It has been recorded that back in 1294, earthquakes in the southern part of Iceland created changes in the geothermal region, and thus created more hot springs.
We ended up traveling to the Geysir Geothermal Area when we were on the golden circle tour. This was the second stop, and we were blown away by the expansive geysirs. As we walked up we first found the “Litli-Geysir” which is an adorable tiny baby one. Then as we ventured closer, we noticed larger ones as well.
The geysirs seemed to get larger and larger as we walked the region. They had such a cool blue hue to them, and around the sides, you can see a nice mineral crust. They seemed to go fairly far down, the shaft actually travels about 65 feet (20 meters) below the surface.
After we explored the smaller geysirs, we found that there was a very large crowd gathered around one in particular. This was called “Strokkur.” For safety reasons, even with the crowd, everyone did keep some distance between them and the spouting water. (In the feeder tunnel the water reaches around 250 degrees Fahrenheit/125 degrees Celsius.) Also, its pretty evident that there is some heat in there with hot mists floating in the air.
Strokkur is such an amazing geysir, and is known to spout water at about 100 feet (30 meters.) Historically, the height of the reach has changed as well, with it being affected by natural occurances, such as earthquakes. My estimation was just from our visit in 2019, so it is possible that the heights may be different at your time of travel depending on seismic activity. We were really impressed with it, and it was shocking in a cool way to see this great feat of nature. As you probably remember if you have checked out my other Iceland posts, the country was created from the North American and Eurasian Plates moving apart. This makes for some pretty intense and unique structures here!
The ground water in the geysirs heats up as it comes into contact with hot bedrock, and builds pressure within it, and this creates the spectacular geysirs that are there today!
I highly recommend checking out the Geysir Geothermal Area in Iceland. It is such a neat place to see, especially if you enjoy learning about the environment and earth sciences. Also, as a fun side note, you can also purchase the famous “hot spring bread” in the visitor area, so make sure that you try it. It is a rye bread that is baked in the earth, and it seemed to have the consistency of a very moist and delicious pound cake in my opinion. Let me know in the comments if you have also visited this place and what you thought about it. Remember to click that subscribe button, and have a wonderful day!
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Additional Iceland Resources/Articles-
https://www.icelandtravel.is/attractions/geysir/
The Geothermal Park In Hveragerdi Iceland
Hiking The Kerid Volcanic Crater In Iceland
Exploring A Lava Tunnel In Iceland
YouTube Channel-
https://www.youtube.com/@northeastallie
