Surtsey still surprises by David Catchpoole After the island of Surtsey was born of a huge undersea volcanic eruption off Iceland in 1963,1 geologists were astonished at what they found. As one wrote: ‘On Surtsey, only a few months sufficed for a landscape to be created which was so varied and mature that it was almost beyond belief.’2 There were wide sandy beaches, gravel banks, impressive cliffs, soft undulating land, faultscarps, gullies and channels and ‘boulders worn by the surf (see picture left), some of which were almost round, on an abrasion platform cut into the cliff.’2 And all of...
