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March 2, 2023
Ask An Expert: How Do Geysers Erupt?
Words: Catherine Magnúsdóttir Images: Art Bicnick / Creative Commons
Geysers are some of the most popular
natural phenomena to be observed and
studied — there’s just something fun
about seeing the Earth let out a great big
belch every once in a while. But how and
why do geysers erupt? We went to Ríkey
Júlíusdóttir, a geologist at the Icelandic
Met Office, for an explanation.
“I would be oversimplifying things if
I would say that they’re all the same.
Geysers are each their own characters,
much like volcanoes. They have their
own cycles, their own frequency of
eruption, their own chemical compo-
sition and their own eruption style,”
Ríkey explains.
Geysir is probably the most popular
— hey, the name “Geysir” being the
base of all other geysers in the world
is nothing to sneeze at. However,
Geysir’s easy accessibility definitely
plays a big part in its status. That
accessibility allowed German chemist
Robert Bunsen to study Geysir back
in the middle of the 19th century and
most of his theories and explanations
hold up to this day. The geysers in
the Russian Kamchatka area or even
Yellowstone Park in the U.S., mean-
while, are at higher altitudes and quite
a bit harder to reach, observe and
study.
“What they all have in common,
though, is that they are related to
geothermal areas. Here in Iceland,
they are all located around the
volcanic belt,” Ríkey says. That belt of
geothermal activity stretches all the
way from the Reykjanes peninsula
in the southwest, cutting diagonally
across the island to the northeast.
But how a geyser actually blows,
Ríkey explains, comes down to their
shape and physical properties.
“Geysir has a so-called silica bowl
of around 15 metres in diameter and
around two metres in depth. At the
centre of the bowl you have a long
conduit going deeper into the Earth.
At 23 metres down, (the conduit itself
gets too narrow to measure deeper
than that), the water temperature
is around 120°C, but it can’t reach a
boiling point because of the pressure
of the water column above. Further
up in the conduit, at a depth of
about 15 metres, the water gets very
close to a boiling point, but still not
quite. However, if there’s any kind of
disturbance in the water column — an
earthquake or anything else to jostle
that downward pressure — the water
mixes around, finally comes to a boil
and expands, heading in the only
direction it can go: up.”
The OG Geysir has been mostly
dormant for years, probably because
of silica clogging up its conduit, so
unless it gets seriously disturbed by
seismic activity, as last happened in
2016, it’ll likely remain quiet. In the
meantime, neighbouring Strokkur,
while not as big, does a valiant job of
keeping hot-water-watchers enter-
tained, shooting boiling H2O into the
air every couple of minutes to rounds
of applause.
FRONT
Words: Rex Beckett Image: Art Bicnick
How long have you worked here and do you like it? This
is my 14th year and I really like it. When I started working
here I thought it was just gonna be for a few months, but
then when you realise that everyone coming here is so
happy and they’re even happier when they’re leaving. That’s
why I’ve been here so long.
What other profession would you like to try if there
were no limits? I would like to work in a rescue shelter for
dogs and cats.
Deep sea or outer space? Outer space. I have this profound
respect for the deep sea. Of course we live on an island and
there’s all those people who have died [at sea] through the
years, so I love the sea, but it scares me too.
What would surprise most people about how things
function here? One day everything works perfectly and the
next day nothing works. It would surprise people how much
maintenance is involved. When we have to close something,
people don’t believe us.
What was the weirdest cause of a sudden closure? It’s
the classic one: somebody poops in the pool. And I didn’t
see it with my own eyes, but once there was a fish in the
kids' pool. It was dead, and we didn’t know if somebody had
put it in there, but then we figured a seagull had flown over
and dropped it.
Are tourists getting better at following the showering
policy? It’s still a big issue. I tell them that if they put on
their bathing suit and try to approach the showers, the
locals will scream at them. Usually that does the trick. They
don’t want to be screamed at. Recently I heard a bunch of
girls up there like, “there are so many rules here!”
Aside from not showering, what’s your biggest pet
peeve? We have different problems for different pools. I
can’t remember which pool it was, but they had to put up a
sign that read “don’t dry your balls with the hairdryer.” Old
men were doing this.
The Village People is a series of micro-interviews with
the people who make life in Reykjavík better. If you know
someone worth highlighting, let rex@grapevine.is know.
THE VILLAGE PEOPLE
According to our expert, geysers are
not, in fact, triggered by space lasers.
Fríða Björk Einarsdóttir
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Shift manager at Vesturbæjarlaug
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