Exploring Iceland's Geology

by Snaebjorn Gudmundsson

167 pages, Paperback

Reviews

[Scott Frank · Rating 4 out of 5]

An excellent book, though perhaps slightly misnamed - it is not really a book exploring Iceland's geology, but it's geological SITES. So you will not find a tremendous amount of general geological knowledge here; there is almost nothing on the minerals found on the island, for example, or on topic of geological interest like formation of lava tube caves or the hydrology of some of the waterfalls. But in terms of talking about individual sites, it is TOP NOTCH.

The 51 entries cover most of the major sites of geological interest (including many of those that are major toruist destinations), explaining their origins (almost always volcanic), cultural history, and often even the major geologists who have published findings about them. If you read the book straight through, it gets slightly repetitive, solely because the geology of Iceland is so heavily determined by it's volcanic origins that inevitably, this is largely a book about lava flows and eruptions.

The entries are very well researched, and sourced from academic journals and texts which are detailed at the end of the book.

It may be a bit much for the casual tourist, but for interested lay readers and geologists, a very solid text.

[Trisha Roberson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fantastic book if you’re reading it while going and looking at the features described. I used this to plan a lot of my itinerary for the week I was in Iceland and it was very intellectually rewarding. However I found that there were some grammatical errors and reading about the sites I didn’t visit didn’t capture my interest. I also wished the images had captions. Excellent reference book overall.