University of Iceland

Research on Consumption-Based Carbon Footprints has recognised that lifestyles change significantly along the urban–rural continuum, with urban typically manifesting as an increase in the footprint of consumption while rural areas have a higher footprint for vehicle usage. However, there is limited research on the extent to which land-use patterns defined by urban plans influence these outcomes. To fill this lack, we controlled for household income and housing type and measured Spearman and Pearson partial correlations between the coverage of different zoning land-use types in the neighbourhoods and the footprints of different subdomains: Goods and services, Leisure travel, Vehicle, and Total footprint. These domains are central to both modern lifestyles and urban planning with related objectives. We found out that high Goods and Services and Leisure travel footprints do align with the urban land-use types, while Vehicle footprints show inverted results. However, the mirrored impact for higher Vehicle and Total footprint is not recognised in exurban areas, while the impact on Goods and services and Leisure travel is inverted. These findings diverge from the common per capita analysis of supply-side emissions used to analyse zoning impacts and call for more detailed research on the net climate impacts of the built environment designated with land-use plans.

Iceland, inhabited by Norse people since the 9th c., had a population of fewer than 70,000 until the 1870s. Christianity, adopted in 1000 CE, brought literacy and cathedral schools, later reinforced by Lutheran Protestantism in 1550 and special privileges for Icelandic students at the University of Copenhagen. European secondary schools in the early 1800s placed increased emphasis on mathematics, sciences, and modern languages, modelled on the French lycée and Prussian gymnasium. In Iceland, the sole Icelandic secondary school could adapt to these changes due to the mathematician B. Gunnlaugsson, educated at the University of Copenhagen and trained in geodesy. By the 1870s, schools in the Danish school system were divided into a languages-and-history stream and a mathematics-and-science stream. However, the Iceland’s school was too small to split, there was no strong person to defend the study of mathematics, and a proposal to run a combined stream was rejected. A mathematics stream was only established in 1919.

Surtsey and the Unexpected Context of Objects is an interdisciplinary research project situated at the intersection of fine art, environmental science, and cultural analysis. The project examines the interaction between human made materials, natural processes, and socio-environmental systems through the long term study of a single rusted metal object on Surtsey, a volcanic island in the North Atlantic formed during a submarine eruption in 1963-1967.Surtsey has been strictly protected for scientific research since 1965 and is designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Regulations prohibit direct human interference, allowing biological colonization and ecological succession to proceed under near pristine conditions. Within this context, a large rusted metal object, believed to be an industrial tank was discovered approximately 70 meters inland from the eastern shoreline and first documented during a scientific expedition in 2007. Its presence, resulting from ocean currents, wave action, and wind rather than deliberate human placement, raises a critical question: should such an object be understood as evidence of human impact, or as the outcome of natural processes acting upon human made material? The project approaches this ambiguity by treating the object as a material indicator of broader human nature interactions.Fieldwork over the last several years (2014-2025) has documented the decay of the tank using GPS, photography, video and sound recordings, including mapping the distribution of rust fragments from the decaying object. By integrating artistic and scientific methodologies, the project demonstrates the value of transdisciplinary approaches to environmental monitoring, material studies, and science communication. The gradual degradation of iron under Surtsey’s unique conditions provides insight into material decay, localized metal dispersal into geological substrates, and the persistence of human made materials within protected ecosystems. All collected data serves a dual function: as material for artistic presentation in museums and publications, and as scientific documentation submitted to the Icelandic Institute of Natural History for archival and future research use. Ultimately, the project frames the rusted object not merely as an isolated artifact, but as a manifestation of processes operating on scales far larger than itself, symbolic of an era in which environmental change increasingly unfolds on human timescales. It highlights the importance of developing new modes of creative interdisciplinary communication to convey complex human environment interactions to broader audiences.

The occurrence of seismic events can be modulated by external periodic stress perturbations, such as daily tidal stress and annual hydrological stress. Such periodic modulations are crucial for understanding earthquake triggering, yet their underlying physical mechanisms are not fully understood. Here, we find that ordinary earthquakes (OEs) and low-frequency earthquakes (LFEs) on the Central San Andreas Fault (CSAF) are more sensitive to the long-period hydrological and the short-period tidal loadings, respectively. These different frequency-dependent modulations suggest pore fluid diffusion during the noninstantaneous earthquake nucleation and confirm different nucleation times of OEs and LFEs. We constrain the depth-varying physical properties of the CSAF and reveal that fluid content distribution and loading conditions fundamentally control slow-to-fast fault slip behaviors. Our study provides an alternative perspective to understand earthquake nucleation by using the information in periodic seismicity modulations, which can be applicable to subduction zones where similar slip behavior transitions occur.

A powerful earthquake swarm related to accumulation of magma in a shallow reservoir beneath Svartsengi, on the Reykjanes Peninsula SW Iceland began in October 2023. On 10 November 2023 a large dike intrusion occurred beneath the town of Grindavík leading to the formation of a graben structure on the west side of town. Subsequently, 11 more dike intrusions have occurred along the Sundhnúkur crater row, with another graben forming on the east side of town. The maximum subsidence measured in the town is 1.5 m, and further fault movements were triggered throughout Grindavík. These events resulted in the opening of numerous fractures and caused damage to critical infrastructure. Following these events, the Icelandic Civil Protection authorities commissioned a detailed geological and geophysical investigation of the area.A final report, alongside numerous technical memoranda, is now available, presenting the main results. One of the key outcomes of the project is a detailed fracture map of Grindavík. The map identifies seven distinct fracture zones that have been active during the ongoing unrest: Stamphólsgjá, Hópssprunga, Austurhópssprunga, Víðihlíðarsprunga, Bröttuhlíðarsprunga, Stakkavíkursprunga, and Strandhólssprunga (see:https://www.map.is/grindavik/). Stamphólsgjá is the deepest (>30 m) and widest fracture (3 m). In addition, depths greater than 20 m were measured within fractures of the Hópssprunga and Bröttuhlíðarsprunga zones. It is important to note that Stamphólsgjá and Hópssprunga are several thousand years old, and not all of the observed widening can be attributed to the current events. Historical aerial photographs show that Stamphólsgjá was already significantly open prior to the development of the town. No evidence of Austurhópssprunga, Víðihlíðarsprunga, Bröttuhlíðarsprunga, or Stakkavíkursprunga is visible on older aerial imagery, indicating that these fractures likely formed during the ongoing events. Most fractures are typically 20–60 cm wide and 1–5 m deep, while relatively few locations exhibit fractures wider than 80 cm and deeper than 8 m. It is important to consider that substantial material collapse has occurred into many fractures, and often only surface depressions and subsidence are visible, indicating the presence of open fractures beneath the surface. The investigation employed various methods, including aerial photo interpretation, LiDAR elevation measurements, ground-penetrating radar (GPR), magnetic surveys, electrical resistivity measurements, and visual inspection.Excavations carried out in connection with road repairs provided valuable opportunities to examine several meters into the bedrock and assess its composition. These observations revealed that the upper 4–10 m of the bedrock consist of four postglacial lavas, separated by sedimentary layers and soil. No deeper hyloclastite formations from the last glacial period were observed. The youngest lava exposed at the surface is the Sundhnúkur (sh) lava (~2200 years old). Previously known fissures in Grindavík are prominent in older lava flows (>8000 years old) but are scarcely visible in Sh.Importantly, the volcano-tectonic unrest in and around the town is ongoing, and further fracture movements may occur in the future, and existing surface fractures continue to evolve due to unconsolidated materials moving within the fractures underscoring the importance of continued monitoring.

The SNUCI seismic network was deployed in the Highlands of Central Iceland in July 2024, with the aim of investigating the crustal structure and local seismicity along the E-W aligned plate boundary segment between the Western and Eastern Volcanic rift Zones. The network consists of 15 broadband seismic sensors distributed over an area of ~75x150 km, surrounding the partially subglacial Langjökull and Hofsjökull volcanic systems. Complemented by stations operated by the Icelandic Meteorological Office and the University of Cambridge & University of Iceland, it is the densest local seismic array in the region to date and thus provides the opportunity to significantly improve our knowledge of crustal processes and monitor seismic activity within two large volcanic systems. Whereas the Langjökull system has exhibited sustained levels of seismicity detected by the national seismic monitoring network over the past decades, seismicity within the Hofsjökull system has increased markedly since 2020, prompting enhanced monitoring in the region. Here we present the seismic catalogue from the first year of the SNUCI deployment. Automated event detection, relative relocation and clustering analysis are applied to provide a detailed description of the seismicity distribution and event characteristics in different earthquake clusters. Source mechanisms for the highest-magnitude events are constrained by P-wave first-motion polarity inversion. The catalogue shows persistent seismicity both within and outside of the known volcanic systems. While most activity is concentrated in the shallow crust (

Magma intrusion and the generation of silicic magmas are fundamental processes controlling volcanic behaviour and continental crust formation. Exposed plutons provide key constraints on these processes; however, the geological context of silicic plutonic systems, particularly in oceanic rift environments, remains poorly resolved. Southeast Iceland hosts exceptionally exposed large Miocene plutonic complexes, due to a combination of higher erosion and crustal accretion rates. This setting provides a unique insight into the evolution of Iceland’s geodynamics, making it a prime natural laboratory for investigating silicic magma generation within anomalously thick (>40 km) basalt-dominated, plume-influenced, oceanic crust setting.Recent geological mapping in Southeast Iceland has revealed four previously unknown, and unmapped, silicic formations preserved as caldera-bounded pyroclastic successions, conduit facies, and shallow intrusions: Kvosir, Þórgeirsstaðurdalur, Kapaldalur, and Hvammsheiði These formations surround the 8–10 km³ Slaufrudalur granite pluton and bound it to the south, east, and northwest, appearing structurally linked to its emplacement. This discovery is significant because the Slaufrudalur pluton is the largest granitic intrusion exposed in Iceland, yet its relationship with surrounding rocks remains poorly constrained.The aim of our research is to constrain the processes that govern the petrogenesis and temporal evolution of large silicic volcanic centres in Iceland. We integrate high-resolution field mapping, photogrammetry, structural analysis, petrography, geochemical and geochronological data on key stratigraphic units to examine how these volcanic formations relate to pluton emplacement and shallow (

Young igneous geothermal systems recharge by magmatic activity. Due to Iceland’s location on the mid-ocean ridge, repeated dyking compensates here for the spreading. This study examines the impact of intrusive and eruptive events on the thermal evolution of the Krafla geothermal system. The so-called “Krafla fires” in 1975-84 were a volcanic episode comprising 20 intrusive and eruptive events, during which seven of them intersected the geothermal system.The effects of repeated dyking on temperature, pressure, and enthalpy, as well as steam content, are modelled in simple 2D profiles with HYDROTHERM (USGS). Calculating a heat budget can help to exploit geothermal energy sustainably: How much energy is inputted by the dykes into the geothermal system? How much of this heat is lost to the atmosphere by advection and conduction? How fast is heat transferred in the subsurface?The total heat input of the dyke into the geothermal system is 0.5-1 x 1018 J. During, and shortly after the eruptive episode, the dyke nearly cools down to the ambient temperatures of the system. Models and previous analyses of steam clouds in air photos indicate that around 10 % of the heat is lost from the surface to the atmosphere, mostly in the first weeks/months after the dyking event, while 90 % of the dyke’s energy is dissipated into the geothermal reservoir. As the system is already close to the boiling point, the additional heat input by the dyke, leads to steam generation, which rises in the high-permeable lava-hyaloclastite layer. It collects below the clay cap and rises through fissures and fractures. In the lower permeable layer of basement intrusions, the steam is less mobile and stays in the vicinity of the dyke. The main changes in temperature and pressure can be observed in the two-phase and superheated steam regions, where enthalpy increases strongly compared to the initial setting. Long-term simulations indicate that the heat input by the dykes formed in the Krafla fires remains in the reservoir for at least several decades and plays a critical role in maintaining the geothermal system.