Surtsey Island

Surtsey: The birth of Surtsey Island happened on 15th November 1963 as a result of a spectacular volcanic eruption. Surtsey is known as Iceland's Island of Fire as discussed in In Search of the Lost Civilisation at Violations.

Sigurdur Thorarinsson, in Surtsey: The New Island in the North Atlantic 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. During the summer of 1964 and the following winter we not only had a lava dome with a glowing lava lake in a summit crater and red-hot lava flows rushing down the slopes, increasing the height of the dome and transforming the configuration of the island from one day to another. Here we could also see wide sandy beaches and precipitous crags lashed by the breakers of the sea. There were gravel banks and lagoons, impressive cliffs … There were hollows, glens and soft undulating land. There were fractures and faultscarps, channels and screes …"

This video shows the very birth of Surtsey Island, an island that is slowly sinking back beneath the waves due to erosion, and may have disappeared altogether by 2100, earlier if rising sea levels continue.