Saturday, August 14, 2010

Strokkur ~ Iceland

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I know this is just a bubble shot but it's not any kind of bubble!
It is captured a few milliseconds before it erupted into a tower of water and steam about 30 meters (~ 100 feet) up in the air.
This is one of the most famous geysers located in a geothermic area east of Reykjavik, Iceland. This geyser named Strokkur (meaning churn in Icelandic) erupts every 4-8 minutes, as opposing to the famous Geysir (the word geyser comes from it) which is now dormant due to clogged conduit.

Strokkur started first erupting in 1789 when an earthquake opened the conduit of the geyser. Another quake later blocked it again in 1896 and in 1963, locals cleaned up the plumbing system and the geyser has been regularly erupting since.

Useful information: Do you know why geysers erupt?
The deeper we go inside the conduit, the hotter it gets and the water is above boiling temperature. But it doesn't actually boil because of the pressure from above. Due to underground movements, this extremely hot water is forced up in the conduit which produces a chain reaction. The pressure decreases (less water pushing from above), water starts to gradually boil and reaches the top with high velocity which makes it burst into a tower of water and steam that smells like sulfur. This shot is right before the bubble pops.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hey great picture I really liked this one

Daniel N. said...

Thank you very much Andreas!

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