Sixty years ago, a plume of smoke, ash, and magma broke the surface of the ocean just south of Iceland. News began to spread around the sleepy fishing town of Heimaey, 20 kilometers to the Northeast of the eruption — a new island was sprouting out of the sea. Soon it was given a name, Surtsey, after a god-like being from the Icelandic Sagas whose flames are foretold to engulf the world at the end of time.
The news didn’t stop there. Surtsey became an international phenomenon.
“It is estimated that its steam output, if harnessed, would have been a hundred thousand times greater than the energy produced by the Niagara Falls,” a British news anchor read melodramatically in a 1965 newscast.
Today, Surtsey no longer holds the title of the world’s youngest island, and its story has faded internationally. But, in Iceland it is ever-present.
“We go to school and we learn about the formation of Surtsey,” said Olga Kolbrún Vilmundardóttir, the expedition leader for The Icelandic Institute of Natural History’s scientific efforts on Surtsey. “It plays a rather big part in the minds of Icelanders.”
The awe and respect that Icelanders have felt for Surtsey since its inception has allowed for an unusual level of preservation and study. In 1965, the Icelandic government forbade recreational visits to the island. Since then, only researchers with a permit from the Icelandic Ministry of the Environment have been allowed on shore.
Surtsey presented a unique opportunity for these researchers. Here was a brand new piece of land both devoid of life and geographically isolated. Scientists have carefully monitored the birth and evolution of life on the island. They recorded each step in the transformation of a barren piece of volcanic rock into a productive ecosystem.
According to Borgþór Magnússon, a senior researcher with the Icelandic Institute of Natural History who led expeditions on Surtsey for decades, these observations have provided a “window into the past.” Surtsey is a living example of how life may have evolved on other formerly barren islands. One such island is Iceland itself, which was completely encapsulated in ice until around 15,000 years ago.
Tall Tales
In the early days, Surtsey invoked its namesake from the Icelandic Sagas by continually raining ash, smoke, and magma onto the ocean. According to local legends, some fishermen braved choppy seas to attempt to be the first to set foot on the volcano.
“They would go to the island and stones would rain down when the wind changed direction,” Heimaey shop owner Sveinn Magnússon said. “Luckily no one died.”
A decade later, a pair of research assistants arrived on the island for a routine summer of recording the sparse plants and animals that managed to arrive and survive on the island. The legends surrounding Surtsey had evolved. One of the research assistants, Borgþór Magnússon who was then an aspiring young biologist, had heard of ghosts haunting the vacant volcanic shores.
One stormy night, after a long day of data collection, Magnússon was laying in his bunk in the rickety shack that had been erected for visiting researchers. Just as he was about to drift off to sleep, there was a knock at the door. When he opened it, a ragged seaman stood at the threshold.
The man at the threshold, as it turned out, was not a ghost, but a fisherman that was collecting washed up buoys on Surtsey’s shore to sell back on Heimaey for some extra income. He had been caught in the storm and was hoping for refuge.
“We made him a cup of coffee and had a good chat,” Magnússon said.
As Surtsey became more and more associated with scientific research, the local legends reflected this new reality. One particularly well-known tall tale stems from the stringent restrictions against bringing foreign seeds onto the island. Before any researcher is permitted onto the island, they must meticulously check their gear and clothing to ensure that no hitchhikers are coming with them.
“I brought my tent one year and I had to first raise it in my living room,” Vilmundardóttir said. “I stretched it up and made sure that every corner and all the holes were clean.”
Despite these measures, legend has it that at least one foreign seed was brought to Surtsey by, or rather in, a researcher.
“There was a scientist who took a dump and the ground was very warm after the eruption. It was the perfect condition,” Magnússon said.
“I heard it was a tomato plant,” Secretary General of the Icelandic Parliament Ragna Árnadóttir said.
Just about any Icelander you ask, will tell you a story about Surtsey. To many, the island is just this — a story. Something of legends. But to a select few scientists, Surtsey is a place to discern and uncover a new legend.
Succession
The first seed to survive and give rise to a plant on Surtsey was Cakile arctica, or “sea rocket,” a common shore plant in the Westman Islands with waxy leaves and white flowers. A few other pioneers followed. All of the plants that survived in the early years were shore plants. Their seeds are built to resist the elements during a long journey by sea and contain energy stores that allow them to establish in poor, sandy soil.
“It was a very slow rate of plants coming in for the first 10 years,” Borgþór Magnússon said. “It was a struggle.”
In the mid-70s, a new arrival caused a sea change in the ecosystem: a seagull colony. A seagull’s diet of fish and crustaceans makes its poop rich in nitrogen, phosphate, and other essential nutrients for plants. Once they arrived, the gulls continually deposited fertilizer from the ocean in Surtsey’s soil.
“There was a rapid influx of plants,” Magnússon said. “The ecosystem really took off.”
As the soil improved, the island also attracted insects and grasses, which now dominate the area surrounding the gull colony. These newcomers in turn created food and habitat for other birds like snow geese and snow buntings. For more than three decades, life expanded rapidly on Surtsey.
In recent years, the ecosystem on Surtsey has slowed down.
“What the gulls could bring in terms of plants — most have probably already come,” Magnússon said. “Some of it is also because as the vegetation gets thicker there is more competition and it gets harder to establish.”
In the future, ecologists actually expect life on Surtsey to get more green, but less diverse. The ecosystem will undergo a third and final fundamental shift when puffins move in.
“The puffin is a key species in these islands,” Magnússon said. “It digs holes in the grass and has nests underground which it comes back to year after year. They fertilize the soil and maintain this fertile grassland with relatively few [plant] species.”
Right now, Surtsey stands out as unique from its neighbors. Over the next century it will grow to look more and more like the other jagged, small islands that loom on either side as fishing vessels make the journey south from Heimaey. The beaches will erode away leaving cliffs along the shoreline and, on the top of the island, puffins will nest among lush grass.
The Next Chapter
For now, life on Surtsey will continue to evolve slowly, and Icelanders will continue to tell stories about the mysterious island off the southern coast. Each year, Vilmundardóttir will return with a research team to measure erosion and record new species. It’s hard to say when, but someday science on Surtsey might provide insight for restoration work.
“People create a lot of disturbances themselves — think of quarries and mines,” said Serguei Ponomarenko, a naturalist with Lindblad Expeditions who has conducted research on Heimaey. “When you can understand how natural succession happens, you can understand how cultivation can be done better in these places.”
Pictured Left: Serguei Ponomarenko leads a botany lesson near Dynjandi falls in Arnafjörđur. Gabe Allen. Iceland, 2023.