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Ásbyrgi
Ásbyrgi () is a glacial canyon and forest in the north of Iceland, located approximately east of Húsavík on the Diamond Circle road. The horseshoe-shaped depression is part of the Vatnajökull National Park and measures approximately 3.5 km in length and over 1 km wide. For more than half of its length, the canyon is divided through the middle by a distinctive rock formation 25 meters high called ''Eyjan'' (, "the Island"), from which a vast landscape is seen. The canyon's steep sides are formed by cliffs up to in height. Within in the canyon is a woodland of birch and willow. Between 1947 and 1977, a number of foreign tree species were introduced, including spruce, larch and pine. The small lake ''Botnstjörn'' is home to a variety of waterfowl species. Ásbyrgi was most likely formed by catastrophic glacial flooding of the river Jökulsá á Fjöllum after the last ice age, first 8–10,000 years ago, and then again some 3,000 years ago. The river has sin ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Diamond Circle
The Diamond Circle ( is, Demantshringurinn ) is a popular tourist route around Húsavík and Lake Mývatn in North Iceland. The route is fully paved and easily accessible during the summer. The southern section of the route follows Route 1 (Ring road) from Akureyri, before turning north along Route 862, the new road to Dettifoss. Then it joins Route 85 at Ásbyrgi Canyon and follows the coast through Húsavík and eventually re-joining Route 1. The four primary stops on the route are The town of Húsavík, Ásbyrgi Canyon, Lake Mývatn and Dettifoss Waterfall, the most powerful waterfall in Europe. Other stops include Vatnajökull National Park, Goðafoss Waterfall, Dimmuborgir (Dark Castles), Eider Falls, The Whispering Cliffs and Laugar. The Diamond Circle covers an area rich in volcanic and geothermal features. The completion of the 55km new paved road to Dettifoss, Route 862, replaced a difficult old gravel road which was impassable during winter. The road was opened ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vatnajökull National Park
Vatnajökull National Park ( is, Vatnajökulsþjóðgarður ) is one of three national parks in Iceland. It encompasses all of Vatnajökull glacier and extensive surrounding areas. These include the national parks previously existing at Skaftafell in the southwest and Jökulsárgljúfur in the north. The unique qualities of Vatnajökull National Park are primarily its great variety of landscape features, created by the combined forces of rivers, glacial ice, and volcanic and geothermal activity. On 5 July 2019, Vatnajökull National Park was inscribed as a World Heritage Site. History Vatnajökull National Park was established on 7 June 2008. When established, the park covered an area of 12,000 km2, but with recent additions of Lakagígar, Langisjór, Krepputunga and Jökulsárlón (including its surrounding areas) it now covers 14,141 km2 or approximately 14% of Iceland, making it Europe's second largest national park in terms of area after Yugyd Va in Russia. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Sleipnir
In Norse mythology, Sleipnir (Old Norse: ; "slippy"Orchard (1997:151). or "the slipper"Kermode (1904:6).) is an eight-legged horse ridden by Odin. Sleipnir is attested in the ''Poetic Edda'', compiled in the 13th century from earlier traditional sources, and the ''Prose Edda'', written in the 13th century by Snorri Sturluson. In both sources, Sleipnir is Odin's steed, is the child of Loki and Svaðilfari, is described as the best of all horses, and is sometimes ridden to the location of Hel (location), Hel. The ''Prose Edda'' contains extended information regarding the circumstances of Sleipnir's birth, and details that he is grey in color. Sleipnir is also mentioned in a riddle found in the 13th century legendary saga ''Hervarar saga ok Heiðreks'', in the 13th-century legendary saga ''Völsunga saga'' as the ancestor of the horse Grani, and book I of ''Gesta Danorum'', written in the 12th century by Saxo Grammaticus, contains an episode considered by many scholars to involve Sl ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jökulsá á Fjöllum
Jökulsá á Fjöllum (; "glacial river in the mountains") is the second longest river in Iceland (206 km). Its source is the Vatnajökull glacier. It flows into the Greenland Sea. Jökulsá á Fjöllum streams over the waterfalls Selfoss, Dettifoss, Hafragilsfoss, and , the second of which is the most powerful waterfall in Europe. The source of the river is in the Vatnajökull National Park, one of three national parks in Iceland. The river is located in the northeast of Iceland and forms the eastern boundary of Ódáðahraun, an extensive lava field. Its drainage basin is the largest in Iceland at 7,380 square kilometers. Glacial flooding Dettifoss drops into the Jökulsárgljúfur canyon, a feature which, along with the Ásbyrgi gorge, appears to have been formed by catastrophic glacial flooding caused by volcanic activity. The volcano in question was possibly Bárðarbunga, which has been identified as posing the risk of a similar event in the future. The larges ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Húsavík
Húsavík () is a town in Norðurþing municipality on the north coast of Iceland on the shores of Skjálfandi bay with 2,307 inhabitants. The most famous landmark of the town is the wooden church Húsavíkurkirkja, built in 1907. Húsavík is served by Húsavík Airport. Overview Income is derived from tourism and fishing, as well as retail and small industry. Until recently, Húsavík was the export harbour for silica that was extracted from nearby lake Mývatn. According to the ''Landnámabók'' ("Book of Settlement"), Húsavík was the first place in Iceland to be settled by a Norseman. The Swedish Viking Garðar Svavarsson stayed there for one winter around 870 A.D. When he left the island in spring of 870, after a winter's stay, he left behind a man named Náttfari and two slaves, a man and a woman, and they established a farm here. The name of the town means "bay of houses", probably referring to Garðar's homestead, which may have been the only houses then in Iceland. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Larch
Larches are deciduous conifers in the genus ''Larix'', of the family Pinaceae (subfamily Laricoideae). Growing from tall, they are native to much of the cooler temperate northern hemisphere, on lowlands in the north and high on mountains further south. Larches are among the dominant plants in the boreal forests of Siberia and Canada. Although they are conifers, larches are deciduous trees that lose their needles in the autumn. Etymology The English name Larch ultimately derives from the Latin "larigna," named after the ancient settlement of Larignum. The story of its naming was preserved by Vitruvius: It is worth while to know how this wood was discovered. The divine Caesar, being with his army in the neighbourhood of the Alps, and having ordered the towns to furnish supplies, the inhabitants of a fortified stronghold there, called Larignum, trusting in the natural strength of their defences, refused to obey his command. So the general ordered his forces to the assault. In ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Canyons And Gorges Of Iceland
A canyon (from ; archaic British English spelling: ''cañon''), or gorge, is a deep cleft between escarpments or cliffs resulting from weathering and the erosive activity of a river over geologic time scales. Rivers have a natural tendency to cut through underlying surfaces, eventually wearing away rock layers as sediments are removed downstream. A river bed will gradually reach a baseline elevation, which is the same elevation as the body of water into which the river drains. The processes of weathering and erosion will form canyons when the river's headwaters and estuary are at significantly different elevations, particularly through regions where softer rock layers are intermingled with harder layers more resistant to weathering. A canyon may also refer to a rift between two mountain peaks, such as those in ranges including the Rocky Mountains, the Alps, the Himalayas or the Andes. Usually, a river or stream carves out such splits between mountains. Examples of mountain-type c ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Odin
Odin (; from non, Óðinn, ) is a widely revered Æsir, god in Germanic paganism. Norse mythology, the source of most surviving information about him, associates him with wisdom, healing, death, royalty, the gallows, knowledge, war, battle, victory, sorcery, poetry, frenzy, and the Runes, runic alphabet, and depicts him as the husband of the goddess Frigg. In wider Germanic mythology and paganism, the god was also known in Old English as ', in Old Saxon as , in Old Dutch as ''Wuodan'', in Old Frisian as ''Wêda'', and in Old High German as , all ultimately stemming from the Proto-Germanic language, Proto-Germanic theonym *''Wōðanaz'', meaning 'lord of frenzy', or 'leader of the possessed'. Odin appears as a prominent god throughout the recorded history of Northern Europe, from the Roman occupation of regions of Germania (from BCE) through movement of peoples during the Migration Period (4th to 6th centuries CE) and the Viking Age (8th to 11th centuries CE). In the modern pe ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jökulhlaup
A jökulhlaup ( ) (literally "glacial run") is a type of glacial outburst flood. It is an Icelandic term that has been adopted in glaciological terminology in many languages. It originally referred to the well-known subglacial outburst floods from Vatnajökull, Iceland, which are triggered by geothermal heating and occasionally by a volcanic subglacial eruption, but it is now used to describe any large and abrupt release of water from a subglacial or proglacial lake/reservoir. Since jökulhlaups emerge from hydrostatically sealed lakes with floating levels far above the threshold, their peak discharge can be much larger than that of a marginal or extra-marginal lake burst. The hydrograph of a jökulhlaup from Vatnajökull typically either climbs over a period of weeks with the largest flow near the end, or it climbs much faster during the course of some hours. These patterns are suggested to reflect channel melting, and sheet flow under the front, respectively. Similar pr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Waterfowl
Anseriformes is an order of birds also known as waterfowl that comprises about 180 living species of birds in three families: Anhimidae (three species of screamers), Anseranatidae (the magpie goose), and Anatidae, the largest family, which includes over 170 species of waterfowl, among them the ducks, geese, and swans. Most modern species in the order are highly adapted for an aquatic existence at the water surface. With the exception of screamers, males have penises, a trait that has been lost in the Neoaves. Due to their aquatic nature, most species are web-footed. Evolution Anseriformes are one of only two types of modern bird to be confirmed present during the Mesozoic alongside the other dinosaurs, and in fact were among the very few birds to survive their extinction, along with their cousins the galliformes. These two groups only occupied two ecological niches during the Mesozoic, living in water and on the ground, while the toothed enantiornithes were the dominant bird ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
