Snæfellsjökull (, ''snow-

fell A fell (from Old Norse ''fell'', ''fjall'', "mountain"Falk and Torp (2006:161).) is a high and barren landscape feature, such as a mountain or Moorland, moor-covered hill. The term is most often employed in Fennoscandia, Iceland, the Isle of M ...

glacier A glacier (; or ) is a persistent body of dense ice, a form of rock, that is constantly moving downhill under its own weight. A glacier forms where the accumulation of snow exceeds its ablation over many years, often centuries. It acquires ...

'') is a 700,000-year-old

-capped

stratovolcano A stratovolcano, also known as a composite volcano, is a typically conical volcano built up by many alternating layers (strata) of hardened lava and tephra. Unlike shield volcanoes, stratovolcanoes are characterized by a steep profile with ...

in western Iceland. It is situated on the westernmost part of 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. Sometimes it may be seen from the city of

Reykjavík Reykjavík is the Capital city, capital and largest city in Iceland. It is located in southwestern Iceland on the southern shore of Faxaflói, the Faxaflói Bay. With a latitude of 64°08′ N, the city is List of northernmost items, the worl ...

over Faxa Bay, at a distance of . The mountain is one of the most famous sites of Iceland, primarily due to the novel ''

Journey to the Center of the Earth ''Journey to the Center of the Earth'' (), also translated with the variant titles ''A Journey to the Centre of the Earth'' and ''A Journey into the Interior of the Earth'', is a classic science fiction novel written by French novelist Jules Ve ...

'' (

1864 Events January * January 13 – American songwriter Stephen Foster ("Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at Home") dies aged 37 in New York City, leaving a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts". His parlor song "Beautiful Dream ...

) by

Jules Verne Jules Gabriel Verne (;''Longman Pronunciation Dictionary''. ; 8 February 1828 – 24 March 1905) was a French novelist, poet and playwright. His collaboration with the publisher Pierre-Jules Hetzel led to the creation of the ''Voyages extraor ...

, in which the protagonists find the entrance to a passage leading to the center of the Earth on Snæfellsjökull. The mountain is part of Snæfellsjökull National Park (Icelandic: ''Þjóðgarðurinn Snæfellsjökull''). Snæfellsjökull was visible from an extreme distance due to an arctic mirage on 17 July 1939. Captain Robert Bartlett of the '' Effie M. Morrissey'' sighted Snæfellsjökull from a position some distant. In August 2012, the summit was ice-free for the first time in

recorded history Recorded history or written history describes the historical events that have been recorded in a written form or other documented communication which are subsequently evaluated by historians using the historical method. For broader world h ...

. The icecap area had been in 1946, in 1999 reducing to in 2008.

Geology

The

, which is the only large

central volcano A central volcano is a type of volcano formed by basalts and silica-rich volcanic rocks. They contain very few or no volcanic rocks of intermediate composition, such that they are chemically bimodal volcanism, bimodal. Large silicic eruptions at c ...

in its part of Iceland, has many

pyroclastic cones Volcanic cones are among the simplest volcanic landforms. They are built by ejecta from a volcanic vent, piling up around the vent in the shape of a cone with a central crater. Volcanic cones are of different types, depending upon the nature and s ...

on its flanks. Upper-flank craters produced intermediate to

felsic In geology, felsic is a grammatical modifier, modifier describing igneous rocks that are relatively rich in elements that form feldspar and quartz.Marshak, Stephen, 2009, ''Essentials of Geology,'' W. W. Norton & Company, 3rd ed. It is contrasted ...

materials. Several

holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

eruptions have originated from the summit crater and have produced

material, with

pumice Pumice (), called pumicite in its powdered or dust form, is a volcanic rock that consists of extremely vesicular rough-textured volcanic glass, which may or may not contain crystals. It is typically light-colored. Scoria is another vesicula ...

from the two most recent major eruptions being alkaline

trachyte Trachyte () is an extrusive igneous rock composed mostly of alkali feldspar. It is usually light-colored and aphanite, aphanitic (fine-grained), with minor amounts of mafic minerals, and is formed by the rapid cooling of lava (or shallow intrus ...

trending in composition close to

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture (geology), texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals (phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained matri ...

. Lower-flank craters have produced

basalt Basalt (; ) is an aphanite, 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 planetary surface, surface of a terrestrial ...

lava flow 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 ...

s with classic basalt composition. The latest flank eruption was of of basaltic material in the Væjuhraun lava flow and occurred shortly after the last central volcano eruption. This main eruption had been

explosive An explosive (or explosive material) is a reactive substance that contains a great amount of potential energy that can produce an explosion if released suddenly, usually accompanied by the production of light, heat, sound, and pressure. An ex ...

and originated from the summit crater. It is dated to about CE, and was also associated with the eruption of viscous lava that covered . In all three large, perhaps up to VEI 4

plinian Plinian eruptions or Vesuvian eruptions are volcanic eruptions characterized by their similarity to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD, which destroyed the ancient Roman cities of Herculaneum and Pompeii. The eruption was described in a le ...

rhyolitic Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained (aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals ( phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The miner ...

eruptions have occurred during the

Holocene The Holocene () is the current geologic time scale, geological epoch, beginning approximately 11,700 years ago. It follows the Last Glacial Period, which concluded with the Holocene glacial retreat. The Holocene and the preceding Pleistocene to ...

producing

tephra Tephra is fragmental material produced by a Volcano, volcanic eruption regardless of composition, fragment size, or emplacement mechanism. Volcanologists also refer to airborne fragments as pyroclasts. Once clasts have fallen to the ground, ...

. These occurred about 1800, 4000 and 8500 years ago. Snæfellsjökull is also associated with a fissure field that last erupted to the west forming the Væjuhraun lava flow as already mentioned. To the east of Snæfellsjökull this fissure field last erupted between 5 and 8 thousand years ago. This eruption formed the Búðahraun lava field from the crater Búðaklettur, south-west of Búðir. This is part of the Snæfellsjökull volcanic system which in turn is part of the

Snæfellsnes volcanic belt The geological deformation of Iceland is the way that the rocks of the island of Iceland are changing due to tectonic forces. The geological deformation help to explain the location of earthquakes, volcanoes, fissures, and the shape of the island. ...

(Snæfellsnes volcanic zone). This is an area of renewed intra-plate volcanism in the North American Plate, with rocks no older locally than 800,000 years, that overlay an extinct rift zone that produced the more than 5 million years old crustal basement

tholeiitic The tholeiitic magma series () is one of two main magma series in subalkaline igneous rocks, the other being the calc-alkaline series. A magma series is a chemically distinct range of magma compositions that describes the evolution of a mafic ...

flood basalt A flood basalt (or plateau basalt) is the result of a giant volcanic eruption or series of eruptions that covers large stretches of land or the ocean floor with basalt lava. Many flood basalts have been attributed to the onset of a hotspot (geolo ...

s of the Snæfellsnes peninsula.

Hazards

The Snæfellsjökull volcanic system has the potential for lava flows, explosive tephra eruptions (e.g. air traffic during a major rhyolitic eruption),

tsunami A tsunami ( ; from , ) is a series of waves in a water body caused by the displacement of a large volume of water, generally in an ocean or a large lake. Earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and underwater explosions (including detonations, ...

generation (perhaps one flank collapse has occurred historically) and

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 floo ...

Climbing

In summer, the saddle near the summit can be reached easily by walking, although the glacier's crevasses must be avoided. Several tour companies run regular guided walks during the season. Reaching the true summit requires technical ice climbing.

In culture

Literature

Snæfellsjökull serves as the entrance to the subterranean journey in

's classic science fiction novel, ''

'' (1864). It is also featured in the 1960s ''Blind Birds'' trilogy by Czech SF writer

Ludvík Souček Ludvík Souček (17 May 1926 – 26 December 1978) was a Czech science fiction writer. Biography Born at Prague, he graduated at Medical faculty of Charles University in Prague as a dentist in 1951 and started his professional life at the dental ...

, loosely inspired by Verne's work. While trying to discern whether Verne actually visited Iceland, a Czechoslovak-Icelandic science party discovers an ancient alien outpost in the cave system under Snæfellsjökull. It also figures prominently in the novel ''Under the Glacier'' (1968) by Icelandic Nobel laureate

Halldór Laxness Halldór Kiljan Laxness (; born Halldór Guðjónsson; 23 April 1902 – 8 February 1998) was an Icelandic writer and winner of the 1955 Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote novels, poetry, newspaper articles, essays, plays, travelogues and sh ...

Radio and podcasting

Snæfellsjökull is the setting and subject of "Lava and Ice" (episode 2) of ''Wireless Nights'',

Jarvis Cocker Jarvis Branson Cocker (born 19 September 1963) is an English musician. As the founder, frontman, lyricist and only consistent member of the band Pulp (band), Pulp, he became a reluctant figurehead of the Britpop genre of the mid-1990s. Cocker h ...

BBC Radio 4 BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC. The station replaced the BBC Home Service on 30 September 1967 and broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes from the BBC's headquarters at Broadcasti ...

and podcast series.

Presidential election

The campaign "Snæfellsjökul fyrir forseta" () proposed Snæfellsjökull as a candidate in the

2024 Icelandic presidential election Presidential elections were held in Iceland on 1 June 2024. Incumbent president Guðni Th. Jóhannesson announced that he would not seek a third term. Entrepreneur Halla Tómasdóttir was elected as his successor, and took office on 1 August. ...

, asserting that it met the requirements of being an Icelandic citizen, aged over 35, with no criminal record, and with a supporting petition.

Notes

References

Additional sources

External links

The website of Snæfellsjökull National ParkSnæfellsjökull
in the Catalogue of Icelandic Volcanoes
Snæfellsjökull The Jewel of West Iceland
{{DEFAULTSORT:Snaefellsjokull Mountains of Iceland Stratovolcanoes of Iceland Western Region (Iceland) National parks of Iceland Jules Verne Active volcanoes Snæfellsnes Subglacial volcanoes of Iceland One-thousanders of Iceland Glaciers of Iceland Volcanic systems of Iceland Calderas of Iceland Central volcanoes of Iceland Pleistocene stratovolcanoes Holocene stratovolcanoes