Wolfgang's photos with the keyword: Hekla

Many kilometers around the Hekla volcano can only see lava fields. One magma stream from an Hekla eruption was as long as 170 km.

We're still driving the highway no. 1, the lava fields will not take an end. Before reaching the small village called Hella we turned 50 km to the right to reach the Hekla volcano.

Hekla erupts a magma type that is unique for Iceland, intermediate between highly silicic and andesitic composition. From surface deformation studies after the 1980 eruption, it has been concluded that its magma chamber is located around 8 km below the summit. Since the Middle Ages, Hekla's has been one of the most active volcanoes of the world, with recorded major eruptions in 1104, 1158, 1206, 1222, 1300, 1341, 1389, 1510, 1597, 1636, 1693, 1766, 1845, 1947, 1970, 1980, 1991 and 2000. Typically, at least the beginning parts of Hekla's eruptions are largely explosive. Some of these eruptions caused great damage, especially the eruptions in 1510, 1693 and 1766. Note that since 1970 the repose interval appears to have changed, becoming much shorter and quite regular, around 10 years, with respect to an approximately 50 years rhythm during the preceding centuries.

Hekla is a stratovolcano located in the south of Iceland close to the village Hella with a height of 1.488 metres. Hekla is Iceland's most active volcano; over 20 eruptions have occurred in and around the volcano since 874. During the Middle Ages, Icelanders called the volcano the "Gateway to Hell." Hekla is part of a volcanic ridge, 40 kilometres long. However, the most active part of this ridge, a fissure about 5.5 km long named Heklugjá, is considered to be the volcano Hekla proper. Hekla looks rather like an overturned boat, with its keel being in fact a series of craters, two of which are generally the most active. The volcano's frequent large eruptions have covered much of Iceland with tephra and these layers can be used to date eruptions of Iceland's other volcanos. 10% of the tephra produced in Iceland in the last thousand years has come from Hekla, amounting to 5 qkm. The volcano has produced one of the largest volumes of lava of any in the world in the last millennium, around 8 qkm.

The earliest recorded eruption of Hekla took place in 1104, since then there have been between twenty and thirty considerable eruptions, with the mountain sometimes remaining active for periods of six years with little pause. Eruptions in Hekla are extremely varied and difficult to predict. Some are very short (a week to ten days) whereas others can stretch into months and years (the 1947 eruption started March 29, 1947 and ended April 1948). But there is a general correlation: the longer Hekla goes dormant, the larger and more catastrophic its opening eruption will be. The most recent eruption was on February 26, 2000.