Last week, I was in Iceland, driving around the country’s Ring Road and checking out its amazing geology with my family. We had a great time in particular exploring in the Lake Mývatn region, on the country’s subaerial expression of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Lake Mývatn itself is in a rift basin, peppered with a great variety of volcanic and hydrothermal features. One spot we enjoyed a short stroll was in Dimmuborgir, a phantasmagoric landscape of pinnacles and arches where a basalt flow collapsed into all sorts of odd shapes. Here are three handheld GigaPans (stitched with Microsoft ICE) that convey the strange shapes to be found there:
Link GigaPan by Callan Bentley
Link GigaPan by Callan Bentley
Link GigaPan by Callan Bentley
In addition, I brought my Theta 360 spherical photo camera, for it seemed like an ideal setting for that particular flavor of immersive medium. Here are a few of those shots:
Lastly, you can check out a Google Map of the area:
That should give a sense of the extent of this odd troll-tower landscape, as well as the larger regional context.
The mission of my trip is to generate lots and lots of images like these that can be used to convey geologic understanding and facilitate access to far-flung and exemplary locations. I’ve got support for this venture mainly from the Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professorship through the Virginia Community College System, and also the GEODE project, which is funded by the National Science Foundation.
I’ve been making a lot of pictures of cool stuff, and I can’t wait to share it with you. Stay tuned!