Excursion with Stockholm University
Text and photos by Erik Sturkell
Gabrielle, Adrian, and I came down from the volcano Askja in the afternoon of the 22nd of August. The next day, Otto Hermelin and Draupnir Einarsson from Stockholm University came to Reykjahlíð to pick me up. Otto and I were the excursion leaders with Otto taking care of the practicalities, too, and Draupnir driving the bus. The reason for Otto arranging this excursion (he normally takes the volcano course students to the Azores), is because his colleague Alasdair Skelton had planned to take a group of evening class students to Iceland, but the trip was cancelled. Thus, Alasdair was ‘stuck’ with a booking of a whole hostel for several days. Therefore, a proposal arose for Otto to take his students to Iceland instead. He agreed but specifically asked for me to participate and help lead the excursion. The excursion started in Reykjavik on the 21st and returned on the 28th, with four nights in Akureyri and two in the East fjords. For the geological localities based in the north an excursion guide exists (Sturkell et al., 2017) but for geological localities in the east and southeast nothing existed. I had been on an excursion in 1991 and remembered some of the localities, but more and diverse geology was needed, not only dykes. The excursion Alasdair and I did together was focus on earthquakes, whereas this excursion should be focused on volcanoes. There were 35 students distributed in a bimodal age structure, one around the age of retirement and the second consisting of younger students. As this was a new excursion, we hadn’t done a pre-trip in the east, and it turned out to be a full-scale experiment. All the new localities worked well! Draupnir managed to park in sometimes difficult places with a 50 persons’ bus – fantastic. Here afterwards, we can conclude that we need to do some fine-tuning of the localities and perhaps include a good zeolite locality. The logistics worked but there were some problems. The hostel in Egilsstaðir managed to cancel the reservation so we had to drive seven hours to Höfn from Akureyri. Otto worked hard to ensure accommodation for all participants and had secured 23 beds at a hostel and booked the remaining nine at another place. After we had delivered 23 persons at the hostel in Höfn we set out to deliver the remaining nine students to their accommodation. Otto typed in the address, but it turned out to be in Eyribakka close to Reykjavik. It was already after seven in the evening and a struggle to find accommodation started. Just after 8 PM, Otto found the last ten beds in Höfn. It was at a camping ground 20 kilometers outside Höfn with permanent tents installed with real beds. The day was saved! We drove out and found the place, but at this point Draupnir had to stay because he had been driving his maximum allowed hours. We ordered a taxi which took Otto and me back to Höfn (to a different hostel). The following night, we could luckily all stay in the same hostel. On the last day we started our journey back towards Reykjavík and made it to Hvolsvellir where the bus failed us. Four bults in the back wheel had snapped. The bus company sent a new bus to pick us up. Finally, we got to Reykjavík only two hours delayed. Next time, the excursion will hopefully run more smoothly, and perhaps a first version of an excursion guide exists.
