First day at Vatnsdalsfjall

BLONDUOS, ICELAND: Guest Blogger: Lindsey

Yesterday was our first day of field work on Vatnsdalsfjall, a mountain located on the Skagi peninsula. Vatnsdalsfjall exposes lavas erupted 7 million years ago from an ancient rift located to the West. We know this because the lava flows in this area dip towards the ancient rift axis in the West; yes Dr. Judge, we used a Brunton compass! We hiked up through a sheep field to the base of the outcrop; we then continued hiking up a gulley until we started to see zeolites. The first zeolites we saw were also found with a green clay:

Green clay and filled vesicles in our first zeolite-bearing outcrop

As we climbed higher, we continued to see zeolites in a variety of sizes. Travis’s tip to me was to look for the white zeolites, as these are more diagnostic of their environment of formation (temperature). It was important to keep track of the units we were climbing up through, as boundaries between flows were frequent.

Travis demonstrates proper use of a field notebook

Because of the steeply dipping flows, we had to bear in mind that as we got higher, the units being exposed were actually stratigraphically underlying the units we had seen earlier at the base of the gully. One particular unit of note was a gorgeous plagioclase rich marker bed; it also had zeolites in it that we sampled:

Plagioclase-phyric marker bed

Overall yesterday, we sampled a total of 50 meters of zeolites, and according to Rob Lydell’s (’10) notes, we have about 50 meters left to sample today. Due to the fog we experienced yesterday morning, we decided to go out this afternoon so that we could see a little bit better:

Travis perches on a slope to take notes, notice the fog in the background!

Unfortunately, this has given me more time to dread this afternoon’s hike-Travis and I are pretty sure that Vatnsdalsfjall literally translates to “Death Mountain” in english as this is the steepest thing he or I have ever hiked.

"How do Mountain goats do this?!?!" -Travis

Not only is it steep, the loose apple to watermelon-sized talus makes every step treacherous; I bit it a couple of times and I have the bruises to show for it! I know our Alaskan colleagues probably have no sympathy as it sounds like their hiking was rigorous as well! However, the successful sampling we completed yesterday as well as the panoramic views of the valley below over PB&J at lunchtime make it well worth it.

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3 Responses to First day at Vatnsdalsfjall

  1. Robert Lydell says:

    Duders! Good to see you’re getting to know the mountain, she’s an old one so go easy on her…. Although, she may not always be so kind in return as you probably know from the cuts, scrapes, and bruises. If I recall Dr. Pollock said Travis was interested in completing the Monocline transect? Yea that was a tough but awesome climb. I hope you make it to the top, its quite a view. Best of Luck!

  2. Mark Wilson says:

    Just so you know how useful zeolites are:

    http://www.zeoking.com/

    Don’t eat too much!

  3. Todd Spillman says:

    A few months late on reply, but I agree with Rob! What a sight that was!!! Sure was a wonderful place!

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