Ingólfsfjall

Ingólfsfjall
	On the way to Selfoss, Ingólfsfjall mountain on the left
height	551 m
location	in the south of Iceland
Coordinates	63 ° 59 ′ 41 ″ N , 21 ° 1 ′ 45 ″ W Coordinates: 63 ° 59 ′ 41 ″ N , 21 ° 1 ′ 45 ″ W
Type	Tabular volcano
	Ingólfsfjall rises above the town of Hveragerði , looking east from the Hellisheiði plateau

Ingólfsfjall summit plateau

The Ingólfsfjall ( 551 m ) is a Tuya in the south of Iceland , between the towns of Hveragerdi and Selfoss , under a ice age glaciers formed.

location

The mountain is located in the Árnessýsla district , in the municipality of Ölfus , Grímsnes og Grafningur and Árborg . About the Grafningsháls he is with the mountain range Grafningsfjöll connected.

Ingólfsfjall is located about 3 km from the town of Selfoss and north of the Ölfusá River .

At its eastern foot, two larger, differently colored rivers converge: Sog , which comes from the Þingvallavatn , a source river of darker color, and Hvítá , which flows down from Langjökull , and the like. a. over Gullfoss waterfall , and is light in color because it is a glacial river .

Relation to Ingólfur Arnarson

The mountain takes its name from Ingólfur Arnarson , the first settler in Iceland.

The Landnámabók reports that Ingólfur is buried at the highest point of the mountain, in the so-called Ingólfshóll .

He is also said to have wintered on the mountain or at its foot. There are different theories about where exactly this branch was located. The Landnámabók settles them up on the mountain. However, this is very unbelievable because he would have been too exposed to the winter storms there. Today it is more likely that it was somewhere at the foot of the mountain. This is also indicated by the traditional name of a meadow Ingólfstún .

To geology

The mountain was formed during the Ice Age . It is made up of palagonite and basalt layers .

Its lower layers mainly consist of palagonite . When the volcano had worked its way through the glacier, layers of lava were laid on top of these layers.

The summit has a hill called Ingólfshóll , which protrudes from the relatively flat surface of the table. It is probably the remains of the crater from which the lavas flowed. The lava layers at the top of the mountain are made of olivine basalt .

On the south side of the mountain you can discover rocks of a striking silver-gray color with sausage-shaped elements that are under nature protection. The rock nose is called Silfurberg and got its color from crystal formation .

At the end of the Ice Age, Ingólfsfjall rose up out of the sea as a cape for a while, which is why its slopes are so steep.

The earthquake in summer 2008

The Ingólfsfjall tabular volcano is located at the so-called Hengill Triple Junction , where the western active rift and volcanic zone intersects with the southern transfer zone, an area in which numerous and stronger tremors are naturally to be expected.

Ingólfsfjall played a key role in the earthquake in South Iceland in summer 2008 (May 29). The hypocenter of the second strong earthquake (magnitude 6.3 on the Richter scale) was directly below it, whereupon numerous landslides were noted on its slopes. The earthquake was felt in large parts of the country.