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Dagur fjögur

 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 were massive!

Today we got to experience real field geology and work on our problem-solving skills. We first checked out an outcrop where we decided we were most likely looking at rootless cones, since every random sample we took was made of the same material just looked a little different. At another outcrop, we fought extreme winds to look at stratified igneous rock trying to work out each layer and what the rock could possibly be since it was too light to be basalt. For both of these outcrops, we could only make rough guesses, but we got to experience how most geology has to be done in the field. Working to rule things out so that when you take things back or the lab you have a starting point to base everything off of.

We spent a lot of time today talking about glacial features and working to identify them on our drive. We drove through the largest glacial outwash field in the world, and boy was there lots to look at. We saw end moraines, lateral moraines, medial moraines, glacial erratics, boulder levees, hanging valleys, horn peaks, and aretes. But the cream of the crop was when we made a short hike to actually get up close and personal to a glacier. Glaciers are dangerous, so we couldn’t get so close to it that we could touch it, but we did get some breathtaking photos. The ice boulders around us were massive, and the glacier was so big we couldn’t even see all of it. It was definitely one of my favorite things I’ve seen on this trip.

After our glacier adventure, we stopped by another glacier tongue that had a large lagoon at the base of it where icebergs were floating off to the sea. It was so cool to see those blue icebergs. Being on land was almost unbearable it was so cold, I don’t know how the Titanic survivors did it. It’s amazing. In the lagoon I saw a seal swimming around, he was very shy but I did get him on camera for a brief second. And since we were so close to the beach, we had to check it out. The waves were massive and there were ice chunks on the sand. But the crazy thing is, it was snowing on the beach! No bikinis for us huh?

Day 4 ended up with us at our beach hotel tonight. It’s the biggest room I’ve had so far, only one bathroom though for the entire floor! The dinner we had was interesting. Since my stomach was bothering me a bit, I decided to get chicken nuggets. I promise you I won’t do that again. I spent $15 on Tyson chicken nuggets that you can get in the freezer section of Walmart!

So far, day four has been the best day. Let’s see if Dr. Barineau can top it!

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