Iceland March 2022

Finish I have been back at home for a week now. It was difficult to get back into the swing of things with work and school. I find myself looking at all of my pictures often. I am so proud of myself for going out and experiencing the world. I will scream my recommendations for studying abroad for anyone to hear. If you have the opportunity, DO IT. A week-long program or a semester-long program, any amount of time fully emersed in your passions is worth it. I will always look back on my time in Iceland with gratitude and fondness. I learned so much in a short time that I will be able to refer to forever. Again, I want to thank Dr. Spears and Dr. Barineau for everything that they did for us and for putting on a program we will never forget!

  Day Eight: I had a couple nightmares in the troll hotel, I think it was a warning for the whirlwind that was about to happen. The day started normally, we met for breakfast at the hotel, loaded the car, and hit the road. Today we had to get to Reykjavík at 11:00am for our COVID tests. We got to see the heart of the city, which was very colorful and would have been beautiful if it wasn’t covered in dirty snow. The COVID test place was like a thing of nightmares. It was dark with long winding paths to control lines. When we actually got to the spot they do the tests, all of the nurses were decked out from head to toe in PPE, which was a little intimidating. I sat down and my nurse asked me to open my mouth, I was confused, I thought COVID tests go up the nose. Let me tell you. She shoved that 40 ft toothpick all the way down my throat, tickling my stomach she was so far down there, and then stuck that toothpick so far up my nose she scratched my brain! Dr. Barineau says that I didn’t n

  Day Seven: Today was a good day filled with lots of laughs and lots of snow. We started the day at the cutest bakery. Everything looked delicious, but I wasn’t hungry and I don’t think there was anything I could eat anyways. I loved the ambiance though. I’ve noticed that restaurants in Iceland will always give real dishes and cutlery, I haven’t seen one plastic fork or paper plate. As we were driving to our first stop, we got to see 3 perfect stream Terrence’s that of course we had to stop to take a picture of. Still, on the way to stop one, Dr. Barineau pointed out creep on a slope just outside of the second-largest city in Iceland. The trees had “pistol butts” where the tree was growing and then the ground beneath it slowly started moving to create a curved shape in the trunk of the tree. At our first outcrop of the day, we saw really well-welded tuff and got to see the contact where the source was either going through phases of pyroclastics and flows or we were seeing two differen

  Day Six: I would describe day six as flexible. Almost of the things Dr. Barineau had planned for us to see were either too cloudy to see, had roads that were too icy to drive on, or were now private property. So we had to get creative with the things we did see today, of course, Iceland doesn’t disappoint and we were still able to see some cool things. The day started when I opened the curtains at the hotel and I noticed a puppy playing with what I thought to be either another dog or a cat. But we saw the mystery animal again right in front of the door to our hotel as we were leaving. It was an arctic fox the only mammal native to Iceland! The best part was, we got to watch him go over and play with the puppy from earlier and two other dogs, they are friends! Our first stop was to visit some mud pots at Námafjall. Let me tell you, it was a FOUL-smelling environment! The ground underneath our feet was approximately 200 degrees Celsius. That heat mixed with the groundwater and clays re

Day Five: Day five consisted of a lot of traveling. There isn’t much on the far southeast coast of Iceland, and there’s no “straight cut” road to get to the northeastern side of the island. The road follows the fjords, so it’s a lot of the same thing over and over again. Don’t count day five out though! We had some pretty cool outcrops where we got to see a silicic intrusion that cuts through basalt. This outcrop led to an interesting conversation on silica enrichment and the working model of why Iceland is the way that it is. Iceland is already a weird place due to the fact it’s at a mid-ocean ridge (MOR) and a hot spot. The weirdest part is that 25% of Iceland’s eruptions are intermediate to felsic which is pretty much unheard of at both hot spots and MOR! The next outcrop we stopped at gave us the rare opportunity to see the “roots” of magma. Here we saw chemical reactions of different materials and the possible mingling of magmas. Not far from that outcrop, we stopped at another wh

  Day four: Day four was a wild ride! Today was glacier day, and it was COLD. Definitely was the coldest day we’ve had so far. Our day started checking out a really beautiful waterfall, that was interrupted with the friendliest dog I’ve ever met. Jacob saw him jumping over the fence to greet us, pointed him out, and the next thing I knew that sweet puppy dog was jumping on me literally giving me a hug! Dr. Barineau played a couple of rounds of fetch with him and made sure to give him lots of love. When we got back in the car, the puppy was trying to come with me! Next, we got to check out some excellent examples of columnar basalts. Icelandic legend says that there are elves and trolls that live within the columnar basalts we were looking at, too bad we didn’t see any. Dr. Barineau explained to us how boulder levees are formed since we saw a perfect definition of them not far from the columnar basalts. However, I would hate to be there during the flood that created them, those boulders

  Day Three If I could describe day three in one word it would be wet. The weather was horrendous all day. It got to be so bad that we are currently sitting in our hotel at 6:00 pm. The day started with some really intense wind, the weather app said the winds were up to 40 mph! We stayed at the day two hotel until checkout at 11:00 am, hoping the weather would calm down. It didn’t. I think Dr. Barineau got a video of Jacob and me struggling to put out luggage in the car with the wind fighting back, I’ll have to ask him for it. Today we did what Dr. Barineau describes as “car geology”. We saw everything through rainy car windows. Even through all the “doom and gloom” Iceland is still magnificently beautiful. We had planned to see some really cool things, a ferry ride to a black beach and doing a glacier hike, but the weather just wasn’t going to allow it. I obviously can’t speak on whether or not the planned experience would have been better than what we did today, however, I can say t

  Day two: After a much-needed good night’s rest, we hit the road bright and early this morning. It was amazing to wake up and see real fresh powdery snow covering the ground. While we were sleeping, about 2 inches of snow layered the ground. We had to wait for the car to head up because the windows were covered with snow and ice! Our first stop of the day was at the geyser for which all geysers get their namesake. The original geyser is dormant, however, there is a geyser next to it, Strokkur, that erupts every 5-10 minutes. It was amazing to hear the boiling water and know that in a few seconds that steaming pond-looking thing was going to blow! We talked about sinter, which forms when hot geothermal fluids cool rapidly. The sun was very nice at this stop. The wind from yesterday was gone, but it was a lower temperature. So the sun rays hitting you were very pleasant. At this point, we could see that the weather was on its way to being pretty bad. The things we had planned to see we

  Day One. Boy oh boy was this the longest 32 hours of my life, but man has it been the best! It started bright and early Friday morning (3:30 am to be exact) when Jacob and I started our trip by driving to his mom’s house so she could take us to the airport. After being dropped off at the airport, we met with Dr. Barineau right outside the JetBlue counter. I went through TSA for the first time, which I was worried about since people say it could take hours, but we weren’t in line long at all. It took us longer to get through all of those ropes! The Atlanta airport was uneventful except for the train shutting the door in Jacob’s face, forcing him to have to take the next one alone. It seems like I was the only one anxious about this, Jacob was a pro. Things really got crazy when we boarded. I just couldn’t shake the nerves, and the plane was so loud and scary. I did it though! I survived the flight to New York City with minimal tears right before take-off. Flying isn’t that bad, it is

  In the beginning...  You see, I have been blessed with the opportunity to study abroad over spring break in my last semester at CSU. My friend, Jacob, and I both work for Residence Life and were introduced to Dr. Spears by a “campus bingo card” in July. When Dr. Spears found out Jacob and I study geology, he planted the Iceland seed in our heads. It has been a journey from now since July! We had to get Dr. Barineau to sign on as the instructor, get our class approved and created, find the funding for the trip, and overall handle many weeks of being a cycle of yes and no. It was worth it though. We are so thankful to Dr. Spears and Dr. Barineau for fighting for our class and allowing us this opportunity.