Strokkur Geyser and Blue Lagoon – Iceland – Water Volcanoes

The last in the series is left for the best where I visited Geysers and the Blue Lagoon! When the guide mentioned a geyser I thought of a pot on the ground with some boiling water but what I witnessed was astounding and was spellbound to the extend that in that much of breeze I stood capturing the videos to get the best shots.

Strokkur Geyser

Strokkur (Icelandic for “churn”) is a fountain geyser in the geothermal area beside the Hvítá River in Iceland in the southwest part of the country, east of Reykjavík. It is one of Iceland’s most famous geysers, erupting about every 4–8 minutes 15 – 20 m high, sometimes up to 40 m high.

Thats true, every 4 minutes there was this huge eruption high in the air that amazed me beyond words. While I tried to capture the Geyser in the minutest detail, I also share this evolution of eruption from the Wikimedia for better understanding.

The beauty of the geyser will be felt with the video, well I tried my best and this is what I could capture.

And the climax is the video I captured, hope you like it and get to feel what I felt standing there seeing the phenomenon.

The Blue Lagoon

The Blue Lagoon (Icelandic: Bláa lónið) geothermal spa is one of the most visited attractions in Iceland.^[1] The spa is located in a lava field in Grindavík on the Reykjanes Peninsula, southwestern Iceland. Bláa lónið is situated approximately 20 km (12 mi) from the Keflavík International Airport and 39 km (24 mi) from the capital city of Reykjavík, roughly a 20 minute drive from the airport and a 50 minute drive from Reykjavík.

The warm waters are rich in minerals like silica and sulfur and bathing in the Blue Lagoon is reputed to help some people suffering from skin diseases such as psoriasis.^[2] The water temperature in the bathing and swimming area of the lagoon averages 37–39 °C (99–102 °F). The Blue Lagoon also operates a research and development facility to help find cures for other skin ailments using the mineral-rich water.

The lagoon is a man-made lagoon which is fed by the water output of the nearby geothermal power plant Svartsengi and is renewed every two days. Superheated water is vented from the ground near a lava flow and used to run turbines that generate electricity. After going through the turbines, the steam and hot water passes through a heat exchanger to provide heat for a municipal water heating system. Then the water is fed into the lagoon for recreational and medicinal users to bathe in.

The rich mineral content is provided by the underground geological layers and pushed up to the surface by the hot water (at about 1.2 MPa (170 psi) pressure and 240 °C (464 °F) temperature) used by the plant. Because of its mineral concentration, water cannot be recycled and must be disposed of in the nearby landscape, a permeable lava field that varies in thickness from 50 cm (20 in) to 1 m (3.3 ft). The silicate minerals is the primary cause of that water’s milky blue shade. After the minerals have formed a deposit, the water reinfiltrates the ground, but the deposit renders it impermeable over time, hence the necessity for the plant to continuously dig new ponds in the nearby lava field.

Hope you enjoyed this series with me and felt the same thrill that I did 🙂

Photos – Copyright www.sunshineandzephyr.com

Information: Wikimedia and wikipedia 🙂 Plus personal experiences.

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