Iceland

Underground in Iceland

Iceland is a large island (about 500 km from east to west, 103.000 km2) with a small population (approaching 200.000.) Large parts of Iceland are more or less uninhabitable, and certainly uninhabited - dissected upland mountain areas, ice caps, recent lava flows, glacial sands and stony deserts. About half of the people live in Reykjavik or adjoining towns in the south-west; the remainder in coastal fishing villages and towns (there are hardly any inland towns.)

Lava Caves
The most significant caves of any kind are natural lava caves, found in recent lava flows. Some of these have been used my man. The most famous caves are at Surtshellir in the Mallmundarhraun lava flow, just to the west of the westernmost large ice cap (Langjökull.) The Surtshellir caves have been described by travellers in the published literature from the 18th century onwards and were reputedly used by outlaws.
Small lava caves at Myvatn in NE Iceland have been used as sheepfolds, and for storage of potatoes.
Most lava caves, however, are too wet (rain penetrates cracks in the lava very easily) for inhabitation.

Man made caves
Iceland has very little sedimentary rock. Two rock types, however, have proved to be amendable to small-scale human tunneling during previous centuries - consolidated glacial sand deposits, and palaponite tuff (shock-cooled subglacially erupted basalt.) Some 200 formerly inhabited or man-used caves carved out in these 'sandstone' texture rocks are known, most of them in the mid-south of Iceland. Some are demonstrably ancient (Iceland has been settled since the 9th Century), with old carvings. Some were still inhabited into the 1920s. Many were used for winter storage or animal shelters. A comprehensive survey (in Icelandic, but with excellent plan and illustrations) has recently been published.

Mines
There are many references to 'sulphur mines' from the Middle Ages onwards, but these were almost certainly only open pits. The sulphur was exported for gunpowder manufacture (competing with Sicily), and Iceland's sulphur was sufficiently important strategically for the USA to contemplate purchasing the entire country in 1867! None is worked now. Poor coal, or lignote, was mined from thin seams between lava flows in the NW fiords, and in the Tjörnes peninsula (Nort of Husavik), mainly during the First World War when imported coal was scarce. Iceland spar (calcite) for optical instruments was 'mined' ay Helgustadir in Reydarfljördur, eastern Iceland, although the underground working appears to have been little beyond minor undermining at the bottom of a large open pit. The mine-tunnel is about 80 meters long.

Road Tunnels
Large stretches of the western, north-western, mid northern and eastern coasts are mountainous and heavily indented by fjords. Several, mainly short road tunnels have been driven through headland or below mountains to connect otherwise isolated fishing villages with the main road network - mainly in the Isaflördur area in the NW fiords, and southwards from Olafsfjördur in the mid-north (a road was made around the headland south of Olafsfjördur in 1965, but has subsequently been by-passed by a tunnel at a lower level.)
Several further ambitious road tunnel schemes are currently under development like the one under the fjord Hvalfjördur, to shorten the main trunk road to the north.
One 8 kilometer long road tunnel is under construction in the western fiords. The tunnel has a triple junction in the middle, the longest leg being about 3.5 kilometers long.
A few years ago a 3 km long tunnel was dug in the "Olavsfjördur" are.

Other souterrains in Iceland
Several other tunnels have been dug in conjunction with hydro-power plants, penstocks and elevator shaft.

This information can be used with reference to its author and source.
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Last modified: 04/10/96