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Breiðafjörður (, ''wide fjord'') is a large shallow bay, about wide and long, to the west of Iceland. It separates the region of the
Westfjords The Westfjords or West Fjords (, ) is a large peninsula in northwestern Iceland and an administrative region, the least populous in the country. It lies on the Denmark Strait, facing the east coast of Greenland. It is connected to the rest of I ...
(Vestfirðir) from the
Snæfellsnes The Snæfellsnes () is a peninsula situated to the west of Borgarfjörður, in western Iceland. The peninsula has a volcanic origin having the Snæfellsnes volcanic belt down its centre, and the Snæfellsjökull volcano A volcano is com ...
peninsula to the south. Breiðafjörður is encircled by mountains, including Kirkjufell and the glacier
Snæfellsjökull Snæfellsjökull (, ''snow-fell glacier'') is a 700,000-year-old glacier-capped stratovolcano in western Iceland. It is situated on the westernmost part of the Snæfellsnes peninsula. Sometimes it may be seen from the city of Reykjavík over Faxa ...
on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, and the Látrabjarg bird cliffs at the tip of the Westfjords. Numerous smaller fjords extend inland from Breiðafjörður, the largest being Hvammsfjörður at its southeastern corner. An interesting feature of the bay is that the land to the north was formed about 15 million years ago, whereas the land to the south was formed less than half that time ago.. Breiðafjörður therefore was formed by tectonic movements and all the islands and skerries were made by volcanic eruptions to form ridges and craters that mostly line up in an east-west position.


Nature

Breiðafjörður has a land and seascape consisting of shallow seas, small fjords and bays, and intertidal areas, dotted with about 3,000 islands, islets and skerries. The area contains about half of Iceland's intertidal area and tides can be . The
bedrock In geology, bedrock is solid rock that lies under loose material ( regolith) within the crust of Earth or another terrestrial planet. Definition Bedrock is the solid rock that underlies looser surface material. An exposed portion of bed ...
was formed during
rift In geology, a rift is a linear zone where the lithosphere is being pulled apart and is an example of extensional tectonics. Typical rift features are a central linear downfaulted depression, called a graben, or more commonly a half-graben ...
volcanism in the late
Tertiary period The Tertiary ( ) is an obsolete Period (geology), geologic period spanning 66 million to 2.6 or 1.8 million years ago. The period began with the extinction of the non-bird, avian dinosaurs in the Cretaceous–Paleogene extinction event, at t ...
. The area consists mainly of
basaltic Basalt (; ) is an aphanitic (fine-grained) extrusive igneous rock formed from the rapid cooling of low-viscosity lava rich in magnesium and iron ( mafic lava) exposed at or very near the surface of a rocky planet or moon. More than 90% ...
lava Lava is molten or partially molten rock (magma) that has been expelled from the interior of a terrestrial planet (such as Earth) or a Natural satellite, moon onto its surface. Lava may be erupted at a volcano or through a Fissure vent, fractu ...
that was deeply eroded by glaciers during the quaternary age, creating a diverse landscape. There are several geothermal sites, some visible only at low tide.


Plants and Animals

The large intertidal zone is high in
biodiversity Biodiversity is the variability of life, life on Earth. It can be measured on various levels. There is for example genetic variability, species diversity, ecosystem diversity and Phylogenetics, phylogenetic diversity. Diversity is not distribut ...
and productivity and has extensive
algal Algae ( , ; : alga ) is an informal term for any organisms of a large and diverse group of photosynthetic organisms that are not plants, and includes species from multiple distinct clades. Such organisms range from unicellular microalgae, s ...
forests and other important habitats for fish and
invertebrates Invertebrates are animals that neither develop nor retain a vertebral column (commonly known as a ''spine'' or ''backbone''), which evolved from the notochord. It is a paraphyletic grouping including all animals excluding the chordate subphylum ...
. By far the most dominant species is Ascophyllum nodosum seaweed. The land-area supports 230 species of
vascular plants Vascular plants (), also called tracheophytes (, ) or collectively tracheophyta (; ), are plants that have lignified tissues (the xylem) for conducting water and minerals throughout the plant. They also have a specialized non-lignified tissue ( ...
and around 50 breeding bird species including the common shag, glaucous gull,
white-tailed eagle The white-tailed eagle (''Haliaeetus albicilla''), sometimes known as the 'sea eagle', is a large bird of prey, widely distributed across temperate Eurasia. Like all eagles, it is a member of the family Accipitridae (or accipitrids) which also ...
,
common eider The common eider (pronounced ) (''Somateria mollissima''), also called St. Cuthbert's duck or Cuddy's duck, is a large ( in body length) sea-duck that is distributed over the northern coasts of Europe, North America and eastern Siberia. It breed ...
,
black guillemot The black guillemot or tystie (''Cepphus grylle'') is a medium-sized seabird of the Alcidae family, native throughout northern Atlantic coasts and eastern North American coasts. It is resident in much of its range, but large populations from the ...
and grey phalarope. The area is important
staging area A staging area (otherwise staging base, staging facility, staging ground, staging point, or staging post) is a location in which organisms, people, vehicles, equipment, or material are assembled before use. It may refer to: * In aviation, a desi ...
for
brent goose The brant or brent goose (''Branta bernicla'') is a small goose of the genus ''Branta''. There are three subspecies, all of which winter along temperate-zone sea-coasts and breed on the high-Arctic tundra. The Brent oilfield was named after ...
and
red knot The red knot or just knot (''Calidris canutus'') is a medium-sized shorebird which breeds in tundra and the Arctic Cordillera in the far north of Canada, Europe, and Russia. It is a large member of the ''Calidris'' sandpipers, second only to the ...
. The common seal and the grey seal have their main haul-out on the islands and skerries. Several species of
cetaceans Cetacea (; , ) is an infraorder of aquatic mammals belonging to the order Artiodactyla that includes whales, dolphins and porpoises. Key characteristics are their fully aquatic lifestyle, streamlined body shape, often large size and exclusively c ...
are commonly found including the common porpoise, white-beaked dolphin,
killer whale The orca (''Orcinus orca''), or killer whale, is a toothed whale and the largest member of the oceanic dolphin family. The only extant species in the genus '' Orcinus'', it is recognizable by its black-and-white-patterned body. A cosmopolit ...
and
minke whale The minke whale (), or lesser rorqual, is a species complex of baleen whale. The two species of minke whale are the common (or northern) minke whale and the Antarctic (or southern) minke whale. The minke whale was first described by the Danish na ...
but also sharks.


Islands

The islands in Breiðafjörður have an unbroken history of human use, but now only Flatey is inhabited year-round. Many islands are used for summer residences and for harvesting of natural resources such as eiderdown and landowners decide wheteher to allow the harvest of Ascophyllum at their shores. Some of the islands include:


Economy and ecology

Seaweed harvest, fisheries, tourism and algal harvesting are other major uses of the area. The largest seaweed harvester in Iceland, with a history of sustainable harvesting for about 50 years i
Thorverk
Thorverk was first established in 1976 by the local farmers and the Icelandic state. During its history Ascophyllum has only been harvested at the same spot every 4 or 5 years. The Icelandi
Marine Research Institute
monitors the resource and allows a catch quota. All harvest is registered at th
Fisheries directory
Just South of Reykhólar, on a small island offshore is also Norður & Co. manufactures
sea salt Sea salt is salt that is produced by the evaporation of seawater. It is used as a seasoning in foods, cooking, cosmetics and for preserving food. It is also called bay salt, solar salt, or simply salt. Like mined rock salt, production of sea sal ...
obtained by evaporation of seawater using
geothermal energy Geothermal energy is thermal energy extracted from the crust (geology), crust. It combines energy from the formation of the planet and from radioactive decay. Geothermal energy has been exploited as a source of heat and/or electric power for m ...
. The process was first used in this region in 1753 and was chosen by Soren Røsenkilde when he established Norður in 2012. Breiðafjörður is the spawning ground for some of Iceland's most important economic fish species and a variety of invertebrates.


Transport

From the small port of Stykkishólmur on the Snæfellsnes peninsula, a ferry crosses Breiðafjörður to Brjánslækur in the Westfjords, stopping at the island of Flatey on the way. It is also possible to circle around Breiðafjörður overland, by car. If the weather is fine, it is possible to see the coastline of the Westfjords from the Snæfellsnes peninsula, at a distance of up to .


Culture and history

Among the earliest known settlers of Breiðafjörður was Aud the Deep-Minded, who brought many of her followers to the area in the 9th Century following the death of her husband,
Olaf the White Olaf the White () was a viking sea-king who lived in the latter half of the 9th century. Life Olaf was born around 820, in Ireland. His father was the Hiberno-Norse warlord Ingjald Helgasson. Some traditional sources portray Olaf as a descendan ...
, King of Dublin, and her son,
Thorstein the Red Thorstein the Red or Thorstein Olafsson was a viking chieftain who flourished in late ninth-century Scotland. Biography He was born around 850 AD and was the son of Olaf the White, King of Dublin, and Aud the Deep-minded, who was the daughter o ...
. Aud took over leadership of Thorstein's dependents, not unusual in
Viking Age The Viking Age (about ) was the period during the Middle Ages when Norsemen known as Vikings undertook large-scale raiding, colonising, conquest, and trading throughout Europe and reached North America. The Viking Age applies not only to their ...
Norse society, but she could not lead military campaigns, which may have influenced her decision to resettle her followers to Iceland. Upon arrival, Aud reportedly threw her high-seat pillars (
Öndvegissúlur Öndvegissúlur (), or high-seat pillars, were a pair of wooden poles placed on each side of the high-seat—the place where the head of household would have sat—in a Viking-period Scandinavian house. According to descriptions in ''Landnámabók ...
) into the sea and they came ashore at Hvamm, and she claimed several hundred square kilometers around Breiðafjörður. Geirmund Hjørson Heljarskinn held a kingdom in these lands in the 10th Century AD. During the
Middle Ages In the history of Europe, the Middle Ages or medieval period lasted approximately from the 5th to the late 15th centuries, similarly to the post-classical period of global history. It began with the fall of the Western Roman Empire and ...
, especially in the 12th century, there was a
monastery A monastery is a building or complex of buildings comprising the domestic quarters and workplaces of Monasticism, monastics, monks or nuns, whether living in Cenobitic monasticism, communities or alone (hermits). A monastery generally includes a ...
of
Augustine Augustine of Hippo ( , ; ; 13 November 354 – 28 August 430) was a theologian and philosopher of Berber origin and the bishop of Hippo Regius in Numidia, Roman North Africa. His writings deeply influenced the development of Western philosop ...
monk A monk (; from , ''monachos'', "single, solitary" via Latin ) is a man who is a member of a religious order and lives in a monastery. A monk usually lives his life in prayer and contemplation. The concept is ancient and can be seen in many reli ...
s on the island of Flatey which formed an important centre of Icelandic culture. The most extensive medieval manuscript, the ''
Flateyjarbók ''Flateyjarbók'' (; "Book of Flatey, Breiðafjörður, Flatey") is an important medieval Iceland, Icelandic manuscript. It is also known as GkS 1005 fol. and by the Latin name ''Codex Flateyensis''. It was commissioned by Jón Hákonarson and p ...
'' was written there. Afterwards, the island was an important trading post and also home to a printing press.


External links


Marine Protected areas p.28
Fjords of Iceland Western Region (Iceland)


References

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