The Volcano Island, Iceland. Introducation and Main menu. (original) (raw)

Quite a few web-sites have stories about the volcano island named Surtsey, which so suddenly popped up from the ocean in 1963, soon to be 40 years ago. But so far I have found just about nothing about what happened after the eruption - that is: how has life developed on such a new piece of earth? At least I have not found much on the web. So why not try to do something about that?

Now there are quite a few kinds of life, and it will be to much to include everything here, because there really is a lot of life on Surtsey today.. Already about 60 different plants are growing on the island, ten different kinds of birds are nesting there, and insects and smaller creatures you can find by the thousands. And of course, there is also a rich marine life. And not at least those microbes, but there we are out of any knowledge, so you have to look up that elsewhere. (although references may be given...)

The pages found below are by no means scientific. They are made believing more people are like myself - wish to know more, but there is a limit... So as far as possible I have tried to make these pages easy to understand to 'normal' people.

Here you can find more information about:

Plants
Birds
Bird migration
Insects
Sealife
Fossils on Surtsey
How life developed
The eruption
Picture-review

February 18th, 2003

See the last report from Surtsey Research - 2009. Click here

Any questions, or a feeling of knowing more, just get in touch!

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