- Address: Haukadalsvegur, Iceland;
- Official page: hiticeland.com;
- Open: 24 hours a day.
- Cost: free of charge.
The Great Geyser in Iceland is truly unique and stands out among the hundreds and thousands of similar water fountains of hot water that are beating from under the earth.
In Russian, he has a few more similar names - Big Geyser or Great Geysir. By the way, the word "geyser" is truly Icelandic. It means - to break through, to whip. Today, all the thermal springs are called that, irrespective of their location.
History of the Great Geyser
The first documentary mention of this gushing source of hot water dates back to 1294. A geyser appeared due to the earthquake. At what height the water rises in those years, it is not established, but more often it was said that water was beating by 70 meters, and the diameter of the geyser is 3 meters.
He is enclosed in a kind of bowl made up of lime and other rocks. As it was established by the researchers, for one eruption from the bowels of the earth threw out more than 240 tons of hot water!
Until 1984, the land on which the Great Geyser is located was in the possession of an Icelandic farmer, but he decided to get rid of the plot and sold it to the tycoon J. Kreiger.
The businessman showed his grasp and ennobled the ground, fenced the site and began charging fees for entering the geyser. Until 1935, when he sold it to the Icelandic director Joonasson, and already he removed the fence, canceled the payment and transferred the land to the use of the Icelandic people, so that everyone could freely admire fountains of water at any time.
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The Great Geyser Activity
It is said that in some cases the height of the water column reached 170 meters, but there is no official confirmation of this information.
The activity of the geyser is directly related to the activity of volcanoes and earthquakes. So, until 1896 Geyser was sleeping for a long time, but a new earthquake again awakened him.
In 1910, eruptions of water were recorded virtually every half hour, but already in 1915, emissions were observed only every six hours, and a year later the geyser fell asleep.
Interestingly, the opening of free access to Geyser led to sad consequences. Many not very clever and educated people began to throw stones, mud, pieces of rock into the crevice to see how the water would throw out rocks. As a result, the geyser ... hammered!
The government joined the rescue of the natural sight by developing a special recovery program, the essence of which was to create an artificial washing channel.
Washing allowed only for a short period of time to ensure the "work" of the geyser. In 2000, the forces of nature came to help the Icelanders - another earthquake cleared the choked channels and Big Geyser again became active. Eruptions of water were fixed up to eight times a day. However, this period lasted only three years, after which the geyser began to fall asleep again, giving out a fountain only occasionally, up to 10 meters high.
Most of the time the cleft is filled with a beautiful turquoise color with water, from which the smell of hydrogen sulphide emanates.
Tourist attraction
The Big Geyser is one of the main natural tourist attractions . In addition, the Icelanders "promote" it: they print on stamps, coin on jubilee coins, make postcards and other souvenirs with its image, design mini-models.
Give great attention to the safety of tourists, because the flow of water is incredibly hot, and therefore can be traumatized.
How to get there?
There is a Great Geyser almost 100 kilometers from the capital of Iceland Reykjavik . You can get to it as part of a tour group - trips are organized once a week. It is also possible to self-travel, but for this you will need to rent a car and stock up a map or navigator. The roads in Iceland are good, and therefore overcome 100 kilometers will be only in an hour with a little.