Herðubreið--Unique Icelandic Mountain
A long extinct volcano to be exact. This is a view I obtained after leaving Dettifoss in Northern Iceland. What I thought was so cool, wasn't just the shape, but its isolation, jutting up all by its lonesome from the surrounding plains. I discovered from Wikipedia that it's a "tuya" type volcano--one that originated under an extremely thick ice sheet (outside of Antarctica, there are very few such in the world). The lava cools much quicker than would otherwise be the case, so instead of a normal flow, it builds up into a steep-sided hill/mountain. This one originated during the most recent ice age--the Pleistocene--and has not erupted since then. At the end of that last ice age, Herðubreið would have been even more distinctive, its sides still less sloped as erosion would not have yet been significant.
Many Icelanders refer to this as the most beautiful mountain on the island, and refer to it as "The Queen of Mountains"--only in Icelandic, of course (which, according to google translate would be "Drottning fjalla" for what it's worth).
This was taken from the Ring Road, south of Dettifoss. Where I placed this on the map is where the mountain itself is, not where I took it from.
I originally wanted to process this as a B&W, but my efforts haven't yielded a decent image as yet, though I may yet return to that attempt.
BTW, supposedly this is pronounced "HAIR-the-breth." Icelanders really slur their words and run syllables together, so keep that in mind.
Herðubreið--Unique Icelandic Mountain
A long extinct volcano to be exact. This is a view I obtained after leaving Dettifoss in Northern Iceland. What I thought was so cool, wasn't just the shape, but its isolation, jutting up all by its lonesome from the surrounding plains. I discovered from Wikipedia that it's a "tuya" type volcano--one that originated under an extremely thick ice sheet (outside of Antarctica, there are very few such in the world). The lava cools much quicker than would otherwise be the case, so instead of a normal flow, it builds up into a steep-sided hill/mountain. This one originated during the most recent ice age--the Pleistocene--and has not erupted since then. At the end of that last ice age, Herðubreið would have been even more distinctive, its sides still less sloped as erosion would not have yet been significant.
Many Icelanders refer to this as the most beautiful mountain on the island, and refer to it as "The Queen of Mountains"--only in Icelandic, of course (which, according to google translate would be "Drottning fjalla" for what it's worth).
This was taken from the Ring Road, south of Dettifoss. Where I placed this on the map is where the mountain itself is, not where I took it from.
I originally wanted to process this as a B&W, but my efforts haven't yielded a decent image as yet, though I may yet return to that attempt.
BTW, supposedly this is pronounced "HAIR-the-breth." Icelanders really slur their words and run syllables together, so keep that in mind.