Before Strokkur throws a white column into the air, a blue dome briefly rises from the pool. It is a small, rounded moment in an event usually remembered for its height. These sequence photographs give that beginning room to stand out, showing how quickly a swelling surface changes into spray at one of Iceland's best-known geothermal sights.
Where Strokkur is and how often it erupts
Strokkur lies in the Haukadalur geothermal area in southwest Iceland, east of Reykjavík. Visit South Iceland describes eruptions roughly every ten minutes, with water sometimes reaching around 30 metres. Treat those as general expectations, not a timetable or a promised height: the appeal of waiting by the pool is that each eruption develops in its own way. [1]
Strokkur and Great Geysir are different
Strokkur and the nearby Great Geysir are separate features. The wider area takes its familiar Geysir name from the latter, while Strokkur is the regular erupting attraction most visitors photograph. Hot springs, steam and other geothermal features belong to the wider landscape; they are not all stages of the same geyser or interchangeable names for the blue pool in this sequence.
Explore more: Iceland’s volcanic activity in a different form; mineral terraces shaped by flowing water.
Video: Strokkur geyser. Iceland: July 2012. video 2 (published by William Burnett).
Photograph the blue dome and the rising plume
For photographs, decide whether you want the beginning or the full plume. The blue dome calls for attention to the pool's surface, while a taller eruption needs space above it in the frame. A sequence can tell more than one tightly cropped image, because the change between the rounded water and the white spray is part of what makes the event distinctive.
Enjoy the geothermal area from marked routes
Stay on the marked paths and behind the site's barriers, and keep children close around geothermal water. A calm-looking pool is not a place to test with a hand or step into for a better angle. The James Goodchild photography credit and William Burnett's July 2012 video accompany the archive; current access information and on-site directions should guide an actual visit to Haukadalur.
Sources, photography and further reading
Original feature and image attributions:
- Live From Iceland
- Incredible Time-Lapse of The Icelandic Volcano Nobody Can Pronounce
- The Arctic Light, A Really Amazing Video
- Welcome to the World of Ice
- The World's Largest Ice Cave
- Kamchatka, Russia! Is This the Most Magical Cave in the World?
- Why Global Warming is Adding Ice to the Antarctic?!
- Iceland’s volcanic activity in a different form
- mineral terraces shaped by flowing water
- Strokkur geyser. Iceland: July 2012. video 2
A small place with so much beauty and wild places.
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