Námafjall
Interesting facts
- Underground the heat is intense: temperatures above 200 °C have been measured at a depth of about 1,000 metres in this field.
- The name Námafjall means 'mine mountain', recalling the sulphur pits that were dug into its slopes for centuries.
- Sulphur from the area was shipped out through the port of Húsavík for gunpowder production, a trade that lasted into the 19th century.
- Hverir, the usual name of the field below the ridge, is simply the Icelandic plural of hver, meaning a hot spring.
- Besides steam, the vents release hydrogen sulphide and deposit elemental sulphur, which gives the ground its yellow crusts.
- On the western side of the ridge, Bjarnarflag geothermal power station began producing electricity in 1969 and is among the oldest in Iceland.
- During the Krafla volcanic unrest of 1975–1984, the Bjarnarflag plant had to be dismantled in 1980 because an eruption was feared.
- Hot water from the Bjarnarflag boreholes feeds the Mývatn Nature Baths, a lagoon-style pool a couple of kilometres from the ridge.
- Námafjall itself is an active volcanic ridge about 482 metres high, belonging to the Krafla volcanic system.
Why it is worth it
On the eastern side of Námafjall, a low ridge just east of Lake Mývatn in north Iceland, the ground looks as if it belongs to another planet. The slope and the flat below it — the field usually called Hverir or Hverarönd — are stained in bright mineral colours, and they hiss. Steam roars out of vents, some of them natural and others old boreholes now heaped over with stones, while broad pools of grey mud bubble and spit. There are no clear hot-water springs here, only steam and mud, and the acid gases have left the soil sterile and bare of plants, with crusts of yellow sulphur crystallising on the surface.
The heat comes from below. Námafjall sits on a fissure swarm that runs from Öxarfjörður in the north through the Krafla volcano and south past the crater of Hverfjall, and the geothermal field is kept alive by intrusions of magma from the Krafla system. The ridge itself is cut by a dense network of fractures, and the strongest upflow lies along its eastern foot, where the fumaroles and mud pots are concentrated.
That sulphur once made the place valuable. For centuries it was mined around Námafjall, and in the Middle Ages it went into gunpowder; the owners of the nearby farm of Reykjahlíð grew rich on its sale. The Danish king took over the mines in 1563, and they were worked on and off until the middle of the 19th century; a sulphur-processing plant was even built at Bjarnarflag, on the western side of the ridge, in 1939 and ran for a few years. The whole Mývatn district, including the geothermal area, has been protected since 1974, and the stark landscape served as a film set for the Icelandic film In the Shadow of the Raven, shot here in 1987.
Getting there
Námafjall lies in the Mývatn district of north-east Iceland, a few kilometres east of the lake. The Ring Road (Route 1) crosses the Námaskarð pass between Námafjall and Dalfjall and runs past the geothermal field. The nearest town is Akureyri, about 58 km to the west in a straight line, and the nearest airport is Akureyri Airport (AEY), about 58 km away.
Plan your visit
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Nearby places
- Hverfjall 4.2 km · volcano
- Dimmuborgir 6.2 km · rock-formation
On these lists
65.63620, -16.82336per Wikidata