Geysir Iceland - Sarada's travelogue
The build up to the eruption leads to the build up of all the people waiting to watch it. After few small small ones it was worth the wait.
Geysir - a common word world over meaning the equipment which helps us to get hot water.
here the nature is providing us the hot water.
Geysir (Icelandic pronunciation:
[ˈkeːisɪr̥] sometimes known as The Great Geysir, is a geyser in southwestern
Iceland. It was the first geyser described in a printed source and the first
known to modern Europeans.[citation needed] The English word geyser (a
periodically spouting hot spring) derives from Geysir. The name Geysir itself
is derived from the Icelandic verb geysa("to gush") the verb from Old
Norse. Geysir lies in the Haukadalur valley on the slopes of Laugarfjall hill,
which is also the home to Strokkur geyser about 50 metres (160 ft) south.
Eruptions at Geysir can hurl
boiling water up to 70 metres (230 ft) in the air. However, eruptions may be
infrequent, and have in the past stopped altogether for years at a time.
History
The research of sinter shows that
Geysir has been active for approximately 10,000 years. The oldest accounts of
hot springs at Haukadalur date back to 1294, when earthquakes in the area
caused significant changes in local neighbouring landscape creating several new
hot springs. Changes in the activity of Geysir and the surrounding geysers are
strongly related to earthquake activity. In records dated 1630 the geysers
erupted so violently that the valley around them trembled. The place name
"Geysir" has been first mentioned in written sources in 18th century
and, as unusual natural phenomena were of high interest to the society during
the Age of Enlightenment, the term became popular and has been used for similar
hydrothermal features worldwide since then.
In 1845, it reached a height of
170 metres (560 ft). In 1846, the research of Geysir by Robert Bunsen resulted
with the explanation of the mechanism of geyser activity. Measurements of
professor Bunsen in this year showed that Geysir was erupting 45–54 metres
(148–177 ft) high.
History of recent centuries shows
that earthquakes have tended to revive the activity of Geysir which then
subsides again in the following years. Before 1896, Geysir was almost dormant
before an earthquake that year caused eruptions to begin again, occurring
several times a day, lasting up to an hour and causing spouts of up to 60
metres (200 ft) in height. In 1910, it was active every 30 minutes; five years
later the time between the eruptions was as much as six hours, and in 1916, the
eruptions all but ceased. In 1935, a man-made channel was dug through the
silica rim around the edge of the geyser vent. This ditch caused a lowering of
the water table and a revival in activity. Gradually this channel became too
clogged with silica and eruptions again became rare.
In 1981 the ditch was cleared again
and eruptions could be stimulated, on special occasions, by the addition of
soap. Following environmental concerns the practice of adding soap was seldom
employed during the 1990s. During that time Geysir seldom erupted. When it did
erupt, it was spectacular, sending boiling water sometimes up to 70 metres (230
ft) into the air. On the Icelandic National Day authorized government
geologists would force an eruption. A further earthquake in 2000 revived the
geyser again and it reached 122 meters for two days, thus becoming one of the
highest known geysers in history (Waimangu Geyser in New Zealand erupted up to
460 metres (1,510 ft) high, but stopped erupting around 1900). Initially
eruptions were taking place on average eight times a day. By July 2003 this
activity had again decreased to around three times per day.
Little Geysir
The nearby geyser Strokkur erupts
much more frequently than Geysir, erupting to heights of up to 30 metres (98
ft) every few minutes. Strokkur's activity has also been affected by earthquakes,
although to a lesser extent than the Great Geysir. Due to its eruption
frequency, online photos and videos of Strokkur are regularly mislabelled as
depicting Geysir. There are around thirty much smaller geysers and hot pools in
the area, including one called Litli Geysir ('Little Geysir').
Descriptions of the Great Geysir
and Strokkur have been given in many travel guides to Iceland published from
the 18th century onwards. Together with Þingvellir and the Gullfoss waterfall,
they are part of the Golden Circle that make up the most famous tourist route
in the country.
Ownership of the Geysir area
Until 1894, the Geysir area was
owned by a local farmer. In that year the area was sold to James Craig (later
Lord Craigavon), a whiskey distiller from Ulster and a future Prime Minister of
Northern Ireland. Initially he erected large fences around the site and an
entrance fee was charged for visitors wishing to view the geysers. The
following year, however, Craig appeared to tire of his project and gave the
area as a present to a friend, E. Craig, who dropped the entrance fees. Later
Craig's nephew Hugh Rogers inherited the site. In 1935, he sold the site to
film director Sigurður Jónasson who subsequently donated it to the Icelandic
people in perpetuity.
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