The

volcano A volcano is a rupture in the crust of a planetary-mass object, such as Earth, that allows hot lava, volcanic ash, and gases to escape from a magma chamber below the surface. On Earth, volcanoes are most often found where tectonic plates ...

Prestahnúkur () is in the west of the

Highlands of Iceland The Highlands of Iceland ( is, hálendið ) are a sparsely inhabited plateau that covers most of the interior of Iceland. They are situated above 400–500 metres (1300–1600 feet) and are mostly an uninhabitable volcanic desert, because the w ...

to the west of

Langjökull Langjökull (, Icelandic for "long glacier") is the second largest ice cap in Iceland (953 km2), after Vatnajökull. It is situated in the west of the Icelandic interior or Highlands of Iceland and can be seen clearly from Haukadalur. Its ...

glacier, or to be more specific, to the west of Geitlandsjökull glacier, a part of the Langjökull.

The volcanic system

The central volcano Prestahnúkur consists of

rhyolite Rhyolite ( ) is the most silica-rich of volcanic rocks. It is generally glassy or fine-grained ( aphanitic) in texture, but may be porphyritic, containing larger mineral crystals ( phenocrysts) in an otherwise fine-grained groundmass. The min ...

and has a small

magma chamber A magma chamber is a large pool of liquid rock beneath the surface of the Earth. The molten rock, or magma, in such a chamber is less dense than the surrounding country rock, which produces buoyant forces on the magma that tend to drive it up ...

. At its feet is a high temperature area which shows that the volcano is active. In 2009 some geologists of the Icelandic Meteorologic Institute researched the material about

earthquake An earthquake (also known as a quake, tremor or temblor) is the shaking of the surface of the Earth resulting from a sudden release of energy in the Earth's lithosphere that creates seismic waves. Earthquakes can range in intensity, from ...

events in the area. This shows that volcanic fissures lie in direction southwest-northeast and reach among others under the glaciers

Þórisjökull Þórisjökull or Thórisjökull (, Icelandic for "Thóris's glacier") is a small glacier and volcano in western-central Iceland, to the southwest of Langjökull glacier. It has an elevation of . Kaldidalur lies in the foreground. Position þ ...

and Geitlandsjökull-

The rock

The rhyolite of the mountain was for some time very popular and exploited as construction material, partly for export. But the mine has been closed.

The name

The name means "peak of the priests". The origin of the name was an expedition of two priests into the highlands in the 17th century. It was seen as quite an enterprise at the time when they went into this region. They explored especially a valley behind the Þórisjökull called Þórisdalur, which had a bad reputation in sagas and folk stories because it was believed to be haunted by ghosts and that lawless people would be living there. As is clear today, they found nothing of the sort, but they were regarded as heroes when they came back from this expedition.Íslandshandbókin. Fyrra bindi. Reykjavík 1989, bls. 114

Highland Road Kaldidalur and mountaineering

The highland road Kaldidalur is situated not far from the mountain and it is possible to access the mountain by a bad jeep track and climb it.

References

External links

Prestahnúkur
in the Catalogue of Icelandic Volcanoes
Icelandic Meteorological Institute, 2009, Icelandic with English summary and maps

Photo: with a jeep onto the mountain
* {{DEFAULTSORT:Prestahnukur Volcanoes of Iceland Active volcanoes West Volcanic Zone of Iceland Borgarbyggð Volcanic systems of Iceland