Nature – nature – nature.
The nature is sometimes rather harsh, especially in young countries, where still everything is in motion and creation, the land and its nature -and even the people of such countries.
The oldest parts of Iceland, in the North-West and South-East are only 15 – 18 million years of age. As these words are written the youngest part of Iceland is only 1 second of age. Yes, we’re speaking of the volcanic eruption at the peninsula Reykjanes, where new land is created right now through something like a gigantic concrete mixcer with glowing fluid basalt stone aboard instead of concrete.
Indeed this eruption now is the smallest lava eruption and lava flow what our scientists have ever seen or heard of. Still, it could be the sign for something much bigger, or something going on for decades (ages), like the last eruption sequence in this area did before it got to an end 800 years ago. I personally have been active as a tour guide since 1983. My words, that I often expressed by driving through the highly volcanic ground of the Reykjanes peninsula after having received my passengers at KEF-Airport, seem to be coming true now: “It’s not the question if, -just when it will erupt there again”.
It may seem to be an insignificant eruption. But the fact is, that it’s happening only 20 – 30 km south of the Capital area, and only 20 km northeast of the KEF makes its impact much heavier than if it was somewhere in the highlands, like the most of the eruptions have been in the last decades. Some people could get scared of these news, even worried about, if it could erupt in the Capital area, but the fact is that there’s simply geologically/geographically no possibility, since this area is not on the border of the tectonic plates like the area of the eruption now at the valley “Geldingadalur” is. Indeed the bedrock under Reykjavik is about 500 +/- thousand years old, and hasn’t been moving since then!
Also, for foreign visitors willing to visit our steadily surprising “Land of Fire and Ice”, there’s also no danger connected to the close distance between the volcano and the Airport. This is fortunately not an eruption like in the glacier Eyjafjallajökull in 2010 that seized the air traffic across the Atlantic for days. There’s no danger of such thing now, since there’s no water (snow) here to be melted and to flow into the crater.
But just to let you know: all the comfortable quality cottages of Nordic Lodges are outside of any tectonic rifts zones and can therefore be thoroughly enjoyed when you decide to visit Iceland and prefer to stay in a pristine environment, in perfect privacy. Just take a look at our wonderful holiday homes and let us convince you: nordiclodges.com.
But by now you could reach the volcanic area to have a walk to the eruption site, with only one and a half hours drive either from the cottage Brekka by Hvalfjörður bay or Holt in the South.