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Entrance to the Geothermal Exhibition and guided tour. The Exhibition is presented via interactive multimedia installations, wall displays and presentations. It allows visitors to examine Iceland's geothermal energy utilization in a clear and illuminating fashion.

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Is a government agency under the Ministry of Industries and Innovation. Its main responsibilities are to advise the Government of Iceland on energy issues and related topics, license and monitor the development and exploitation of energy and mineral resources, regulate the operation of the electrical transmission and distribution system and promote energy research.

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While driving Iceland's national ring road, in a southerly direction from Reykjavík, one cannot miss noticing the steam coming up from an extraordinarily grey infrastructure covering a large piece of land around mount Hengill, approximately 30 km from the capital. Filled with roads, drills, pipelines, and a large powerhouse, this once untouched geothermal area is now the site of the Hellisheiði geothermal power plant, operated by the publicly owned Reykjavík Energy ("Orkuveita Reykjavíkur" in Icelandic, abbreviated "OR"), generating electricity almost entirely for aluminium production.

Geothermal energy is commonly praised as a "green" alternative to environmentally unfriendly power sources such as fossil fuels, coals and nuclear energy. As a result of "the development of what were once thought to be non-viable resources", a glossy brochure from engineering firm Mannvit states, "more and more public and private entities are looking into geothermal power as part of their strategy to mitigate global warming while still meeting growing energy demands." In a promotional text for the Geothermal Energy Exhibition at Hellisheiði, the plant is said to be a "striking example of how geothermal energy is harnessed in a sustainable manner in Iceland and a showcase for the rest of the world." Additionally, Reykjavík Energy has not hesitated maintaining that "general public opinion of exploiting the geothermal resources in the Hengill region is positive."

So many men, so many minds. Only about ten kilometres away from the plant stands the small town of Hveragerði, wherein one gets to hear a completely different story. "We cannot accept that OR will be permitted to continue polluting the atmosphere," Hallgrímur Þ. Magnússon, clinical doctor in Hveragerði said to newspaper DV last June. A few days earlier he had voiced his worries to local newspaper Sunnlenska, encouraging the town's residents to start taking magnesium and iodide supplements to counteract the health impacts of the power plant's sulphur (hydrogen sulphide) pollution. "I maintain that the pollution is of such quantity that the human body needs those two materials in order to resist the effects," Hallgrímur said to Sunnlenska.

Recent inspection makes it clear that the sulphur pollution, which does not only reach to Hveragerði but also to Reykjavík, often goes far above Icelandic and international standards. In the case of Hveragerði, the quantity of polluting materials in the atmosphere is such that the town should be considered within the plant's dilution area (the area in which residential homes are not permitted).
EFFLUENT LAGOONS AND MANMADE EARTHQUAKES

Unfortunately for the burgeoning and PR heavy Icelandic energy sector, the green image of geothermal power has been repeatedly challenged lately. In particular regarding the country's and, in fact, the world's biggest geothermal plant at Hellisheiði. Two new unplanned effluent lagoons were recently discovered close to the plant, where waste water from geothermal pumping had leaked out onto the surface. Environmentalist and journalist Ómar Ragnarsson, who originally discovered the lagoons, followed the story by publishing his own photographs of similar lakes created by other geothermal plants, such as those by the plants at Reykjanes, Svartsengi, Nesjavellir and Bjarnarflag ¹. These lakes can be very dangerous to local freshwater systems, as Saving Iceland's Jaap Krater and Miriam Rose explain in a book chapter on the development of geothermal harnessing in Iceland:

Geothermal fluids contain high concentrations of heavy metals and other toxic elements, including radon, arsenic, mercury, ammonia and boron, which are damaging to the freshwater systems into which they are released as waste water. Arsenic concentrations of 0.5 to 4.6 ppm are found in waste water released from geothermal power plants; the WHO recommends a maximum 0.01 ppm in drinking water. ²

Yet another backlash for the geothermal industry is a recent study, carried out by Hanne Krage Carlsen, whose results were published in the international Environmental Research journal earlier this year ³. The study shows a direct link between the plant's sulphur pollution and increased purchase of asthma medicine among the residents of the greater Reykjavík area. New examination of vegetation in the Hellisheiði area also shows that the sulphur pollution has damaged large quantities of moss, which according to Magnea Magnúsdóttir who carried out the examination, will take decades to recover ⁴. OR claims that the results of the plant's Environmental Impact Assessment "indicate that construction of the plant will not have a lasting influence on the area's vegetation" - something which, according to this recent information, needs to be questioned.
POLLUTION ABOVE GUIDELINE LIMITS

During OR's Annual General Meeting (AGM) last June, it was revealed that Hveragerði is inside an area wherein sulphur (hydrogen sulphide) pollution is above the current guideline limits. New rules are supposed to go through in 2014, according to which the guideline limits will be strict 50 micrograms per square-meter per 24 hours. The authorities will also be obliged to alarm the public each time the pollution goes above that limit.

Though they admit the plant's high concentration of polluting emissions, OR has said that the company will not able to adapt to the new rules until 2019 at the earliest. Therefore, the company will ask for an exception, to which the people of Hveragerði are heavily opposed. In an interview with Iceland's National Broadcasting Service (RÚV), the town's Mayor Aldís Hafsteinsdóttir protested against the company's request, stating that OR had obviously rushed way too fast when preparing and building the plant and thus underestimated its environmental impacts. In a separate interview with Saving Iceland's Miriam Rose this June, Aldís emphasized this point:

We feel very much like victims of all of this. This town has been here for 70 years and the power plant has only been here for 10 or 15. They should have considered the effects on the neighbourhood they were putting it in. It is absolutely obvious that the plant is situated too close to our town, as there are so many impacts that affect daily life here in Hveragerði.

Adding fuel to such criticism, Minister of the Environment Svandís Svavarsdóttir followed in the footsteps of many environmentalists and told RÚV, in an interview last June, that OR had been nothing but the puppet of heavy industry for the last years. That explains not only the company's poor financial situation but also the environmental catastrophe at Hellisheiði, Svandís said. Mayor Aldís agrees: "They [OR] have sold their energy to the aluminium smelters way too cheap and now they can't afford to reduce their pollution. That is, in my opinion, the reason why they are trying to stop the new regulations."
DILUTION AREA: BIGGER THAN OF ALUMINIUM SMELTERS

The Hellisheiði plant started operating in 2006 and has since then seen two expansions, in 2008 and 2011, leading to increased sulphur pollution. Most of the energy goes to the aluminium smelter in Grundartangi, owned and operated by the North-American Century Aluminium, which then again is owned by mining and commodities giant Glencore.

Demonstrating Iceland's haphazard approach to the development of geothermal energy, the Hellisheiði power plants' dilution area has yet to be defined after six years of operation. However, it is clear from recent evidence that the dilution areas for geothermal plants should be much larger than for other polluting industries in Iceland - much bigger, for instance, than Rio Tinto Alcan's aluminium smelter in Straumsvík and Century's in Grundartangi, as reported by newspaper Morgunblaðið in June ⁵. During OR's recent AGM, their environmental director Hólmfríður Sigurðardóttir, admitted that she could not guarantee that the health of people living inside the area where pollution is above guideline limits (i.e. people living inside the dilution area) is not negatively affected by the pollution. Permanent residence is, in fact, prohibited inside such areas by law and land use is restricted to several limitations.

Interestingly, the Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) for the Hellisheiði power station, carried out by engineering firm VGK on behalf of OR, overlooked the potential impacts on Hveragerði altogether, though it did take into consideration the negligible impacts on Þorlákshöfn and other towns much further away from the plant.

In September 2011 more than 1500 earthquakes were felt in Hveragerði in a single day, with other quakes going on for several weeks, some up to 4 on the Richter scale ⁶. At first OR denied any culpability in the incident, though the residents immediately recognised the quakes as being unusual as many were focused on a single spot. However, after a few days they admitted that they had been pumping geothermal effluent water back into the ground, which is necessary to prevent surface pollution, but is well known by geologists to be a cause of man-made earthquakes. OR responded to the resident's outrage over the quakes by holding a public meeting in which they claimed they were simply speeding up the release of earthquakes that would have happened anyway in the future. To this local resident Einar Bergmundur stood up and stated: "That is a very good argument. I am also sure I am going to die one day, but that doesn't give you the right to kill me today to speed the process up?"
THE GUINEA PIGS OF HVERAGERÐI
In January this year some residents of Hveragerði started experiencing breathlessness, coughing and nausea as well as a strong sulphurous smell. They called Aldís to ask what was going on. Thanks to a monitoring site the residents had requested OR to install on their kindergarten, Aldís was able to see that hydrogen sulphide levels had persistently been in the hundreds of micrograms for more than a week. One day they had reached 337µg, more than double the current regulations, and almost seven times higher than the new regulations would allow. With the man-made earthquakes still on their minds, the residents were furious. Aldís told us that despite this breach of regulations no action seems to have been taken by OR:

I just can't believe that this is how it is supposed to be - that the locals are supposed to monitor these levels themselves. There must be some institution that is supposed to take care of the people and make sure that we are not breathing this. But it did not happen. We live here, we have kids, the elderly are fragile and some have bad lungs. They [OR] are experimenting with these technologies as they build the plants. If they wanted to use us, the inhabitants of Hveragerði as guinea pigs they should have asked us first and not let everything that has happened here come as a surprise. They must have known better before they started this project and that is a fact the makes us angry. Our experience of the Hellisheiði power plant teaches us that not a single plant should be built here in the vicinity before they have a complete control of those matters that have gone wrong in Hellisheiði.

In response to such criticism, OR published a press releases claiming that there are no health risks at that level of exposure and that much of the science which says so is contended. They invite people to visit the plant and breathe the fumes, and even suggest that up to 14,000µg of Hydrogen Sulphide is acceptable to breathe for up to 8 hours ⁷.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) does not agree. They state that concentrations above 280µg can cause breathing problems, followed by eye irritation at 500µg, loss of energy and increased lactic acid in the blood at 700µg, and finally headaches, irritability, dizziness, memory loss and fatigue at 2800µg. By 14,000µg people tend to suffer "olfactory paralysis" - a shut down of sense of smell which prevents them from noticing the odour and accompanying dangers. The WHO recommends a maximum guideline of 150 µg/m3 for a 24 hour period to ensure "the absence of appreciable risks that can cause adverse health effects" whereas the Californian regulation limits Hydrogen Sulphide emissions to 43 µg/m3 for more than an hour to prevent strong smell ⁸. Iceland's current regulations are weak by international standards and even these weak standards are not being enforced.

In the same press release OR presented a diagram of emissions from Hellisheiði showing that 99.49% of the steam released from the power plant is made up of water, while only 0.42% is CO2 and 0.08% Hydrogen Sulphide. This is a clear attempt at greenwashing the reality, as it is self evident that steam is largely made up of water and that this is not how sulphur concentrations in the environment are measured. These widely broadcast figures try to downplay well established science in what Aldís called "an insult to the intelligence of the people of Hveragerði."
REYKJAVÍK'S CITY COUNCIL OPERATING AGAINST ITS OWN POLICY
Yet another 90 MW expansion is now planned in the area of Hverahlíð, south of the Hellisheiði plant and even closer to Hveragerði. The Hverahlíð plant is supposed to generate energy for another Century smelter, which currently stands half built and collecting dust in Helguvík, close to the Keflavík International Airport. The Helguvík project has been criticised from the beginning of its construction in 2008, not only for environmental reasons but also for the major energy uncertainty the project has long faced. During the smelter's ceremonial first shovelling - interrupted by Saving Iceland activists who rightly named it "Century's Lack Of Permission Party" as the company did not have any permissions but to construct the building itself - Century's director in Iceland, Ragnar Guðmundsson, said that he hoped the energy issues would be sorted in late 2010, when the smelter's first phase would be complete.

Today the unfinished building stands like a skeleton at the construction site while the energy issue remains unsolved. Century has signed contracts with two energy companies, OR and HS Orka - the latter owned mostly by Canadian firm Alterra Power and partly by Icelandic pension funds - but neither company has been able to guarantee any energy. HS Orka hopes to be allowed to drill in the geothermal areas of the Reykjanes peninsula - a large-scale construction that would not only permanently alter the peninsula's unique nature, but also, as many scientists have claimed, not produce enough energy for the Helguvík smelter.

OR, on the other hand, bets on Hverahlíð as an electricity supplier for Helguvík. But the company is heavily indebted after its recent aluminium adventures, which is one of the reasons the contract with Century should be breached, says Sóley Tómasdóttir from the Left Green party ("Vinstri græn") and board member of OR. In an interview with RÚV in April this year, she maintained that the company should focus on the environmental impacts at Hellisheiði before even thinking about building new plants. She also criticised the current majority of Reykjavík's city council (composed of the social democratic "Samfylkingin" and the centrist "Besti flokkurinn," a new party that won the city elections in 2010), for not standing by its promises to stop selling new power from the publicly owned energy company to heavy industry projects.

In the same interview, Haraldur Flosi Ólafsson, chairman of the board, responded to this criticism by maintaining that despite the current majority's official opposition to developing any further energy for aluminium production, the company would have to abide to already existing contracts. The Century contract is originally from 2006 but was renewed in late December 2008, less than three months after Iceland's infamous economic collapse. At the aforementioned AGM, Haraldur's words were echoed by the company's director Bjarni Bjarnason, who said that in his opinion all future plans for building new power plants should be abandoned, as building new plants for private entities goes against the company's current policy. However, Bjarni stated, already existing contracts needs to be abided.

Sóley disagrees, pointing out a clause in the contract, which should allow for the company's withdrawal if it does not have the financial capacity to fund the project. But instead of doing so, OR is now planning to finance the Hverahlíð plant with the assistance of Icelandic pension funds. Such a step is generally seen as very controversial (such as in the heavily criticised case of HS Orka) and as the first step on the way to the privatisation of Iceland's nature.
NEITHER SUSTAINABLE NOR RENEWABLE

The impacts of sulphur pollution, man made earthquakes and effluent lagoons appearing at Hellisheiði are of great importance in Iceland in view of the large scale geothermal plans which are increasingly being promoted in Mývatn and Reykjanes peninsula. According to the recently published parliamentary resolution for the so-called Master Plan for Hydro and Geothermal Energy Resources in Iceland, these geothermal power plans are definitely "on", while several planned hydro dams are now "off".

Effluent lagoons have already been discovered at test drilling sites at Þeistareykir and Bjarnarflag in the North ⁹. If all of the planned geothermal power plants are built around Mývatn, the town of Reykahlíð will become exposed to 32,000 tons of hydrogen sulphide per year potentially raising serious health issues for residents ¹⁰. In Reykjanes the two existing geothermal power plants at Svartsengi and Rekjanesvirkjun already produce huge amounts of hydrogen sulphide, and the proposed expansions and new projects would radically increase this figure. Scientists have warned that geothermal fields at Svartsengi are already overexploited and may not be able to produce power much longer ¹¹. In addition many of the new proposed drilling sites are connected to the same geothermal aquifer and could very quickly become dried or cooled by excessive exploitation for large scale energy. For further information read Saving Iceland's detailed account of the planned geothermal power projects on Reykjanes peninsula.)

The fact is that geothermal energy technology is still very new and little is known about the long term, or even short term effects of exploiting the heat of volcanic aquifers on such a large scale. In addition, geothermal areas are globally incredibly rare and each one is different, making the impacts of drilling and power generation hard to predict. Cambridge University professor David McKay's comprehensive 2009 book on sustainable energy points out that geothermal power is neither sustainable nor renewable when used on a commercial scale as the wells can quickly dry up or cool down, taking more than a hundred years to recover afterwards ¹², yet drastically altering the local environment. Experimenting with such an undeveloped technology in Iceland's endemic geothermal hot spring areas, which the country is so famous for, could result in total destruction of these beautiful and unique places. All that for only a few years of energy production, which in turn would be sold at a cut rate price to heavy industry, reaping little reward for Icelandic people.
See Saving Iceland's photos of the effects of drilling at Hellisheiði here. The photos are from 2008 when Saving Iceland's then annual action camp against heavy industry was located at Hellisheiði.
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References
1. Ómar Ragnarsson: Affallsvatn háhitasvæða - auðleyst vandamál? Framtíðarlandið, 17.05.2012.

2. Krater and Miriam Rose on behalf of Saving Iceland: "Development of Iceland's Geothermal Energy Potential for Aluminum Production - A Critical Analysis". In: Abrahamsky, K. (ed.) Sparking a World-wide Energy Revolution: Social Struggles in the Transition to a Post-Petrol World. 2010, AK Press, Edinburgh. p. 319-333 (download PDF here).

3. Hanne Crage Carlsen: Results published in Environmental Research (link currently not available), 2012.

4. Mosinn lengi að jafna sig, Náttúran.is. 24.06.2012.

5. Meiri mengun en talið var, Mbl.is. 14.06.2012.

6. Jóhanna M. Thorlacius: Jarðskjálftar á Íslandi 2011 - Ársyfirlit, Veðurstofa Íslands, 04.04.2012.

7. Brennisteinsvetni - Spurt og svarað, Orkuveita Reykjavíkur, 15.06.2012.

8. Luis A. Franco Nolasco: United Nations University, Geothermal Training Programme at Orkustofnun, Reykjavík, "Hydrogen Sulphide Abatement During Discharge of Geothermal Steam From Well Pads: A Case Study of Well Pad TR-18, El Salvador", 2012.

9. Energy Companies Destroying Þeistareykir, Saving Iceland, 10.07.2008.

10. Benediktsson, O.: "Open letter to the minister for the environment regarding operating licenses for an anode factory at Katanes in Hvalfjordur", University of Iceland, Reykjavík, 2004.

11. Sigmundur Einarsson: Hinar miklu orkulindir Íslands, Smugan, 01.10.2009.

12. David McKay: Sustainable Energy - without the hot air, Cambridge UIT, 2009 (download PDF here).

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While driving Iceland's national ring road, in a southerly direction from Reykjavík, one cannot miss noticing the steam coming up from an extraordinarily grey infrastructure covering a large piece of land around mount Hengill, approximately 30 km from the capital.

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MYSTERY BEHIND THE SNAEFELLSJOKULL GLACIER: mystic places in Iceland 

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MYSTERY BEHIND THE SNAEFELLSJOKULL GLACIER: mystic places in Iceland 

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Preservation of natural resources In Iceland: ecology.

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'"See the great fins!" shouts the professor. "See the air and water sprouting from the blowholes!" We stand, shocked, astonished, terrified at the sight of a shoal of sea monsters, the smallest of which could split our raft with a snap of its teeth.' - Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Reykjavík
A jet of water erupts off the starboard side of our boat, and the spray splashes the deck. There's barely time to understand what's happening before a flash of silver whale's skin breaks the surface, dips beneath a wave and plunges down to the dark fathoms of the North Atlantic. Out here, within sight of Reykjavík, whale spotters and whaling boats scour the seas for these mighty beasts. The minke whale, notorious for its bad breath; the blue whale, whose tongue alone outweighs an African elephant; and the leaping humpback whale, all have patrolled the depths beneath our boat.

These may not be the sea monsters Jules Verne describes in Journey to the Centre of the Earth, but Iceland is the setting for his famous novel. Verne's heroes - the eccentric Professor Lidenbrock and his long-suffering nephew, Axel - discover a clue encrypted in an old Icelandic manuscript that sends them to the island in search of a passage to the core of the planet. The adventure follows the characters as they navigate underground seas filled with prehistoric sea monsters, dodging lava flows and crossing bottomless chasms. The strange subterranean world that Verne describes isn't too far removed from the landscapes on the surface in Iceland. This, after all, is a place where lightning storms ravage volcano craters; where the ground can crack open and gobble up the farmland; where new islands have popped up overnight in the surrounding seas.

Pulling into Reykjavík harbour, just as Verne's characters did, it seems remarkable that anyone could make their home in this forbidding land. Huge cliffs loom all around, looking like they might lurch forward at any moment and push the tiny town into the sea. Reykjavík sits on the edge of the Arctic Circle with a defiance that would make its Viking founders proud. In the summer, revellers flock to the streets for the runtur - the bar crawl famous for its excess and irreverence (one nightclub even has the faces of failed Icelandic bankers plastered over its urinals). In the winter, the crowds disappear inside cosy cafés, while the corrugated-iron houses shudder in thundering Arctic winds.

Guarding over the city is Hallgrímskirkja, the church where, from high up in the bell tower, the outline of Snæfellsjökull can just be seen. This snow-capped volcano, scarcely visible behind a veil of mist, was Professor Lidenbrock's destination - the mountain where an ancient riddle spoke of a crater at the summit that leads to the centre of the Earth. The volcano strikes an ominous presence on the horizon - one of countless sleeping giants in Iceland that might one day stir, sending torrents of fire, rock and ash raining down. Lurking in the fog, Snæfellsjökull seems to dare me to trace the footsteps of Verne's heroes - to scale its slopes and find out if the summit really does hide a gateway to a world beneath our feet.

Stykkishólmur
'How can we know for certain that Snæfells isn't about to erupt? The fact that this monster has slumbered since 1229 does not mean that it will not wake. And if it does, what will become of us?' -Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

We are not talking about pregnant ladies,' barks the professor. 'We are talking about volcanoes; there is no due date - no timetable for an eruption.'

Professor Haraldur Sigurdsson is something of a celebrity in this remote corner of Iceland, a volcanologist who grew up in the shadow of Snæfellsjökull and who has set up a volcano museum in Stykkishólmur, his hometown. Little more than a cluster of timber houses huddled around a natural harbour, Stykkishólmur is one of the last staging posts before the Arctic Circle. Pacing the quay are sturdy fishermen with thick woollen jumpers and rambling beards. Seagulls stalk the rooftops - swooping down on discarded scraps of fish - but otherwise, signs of life here are scarce.

In the darkened hall of the professor's museum, paintings of volcanoes hang alongside antique geological instruments used by Verne's contemporaries. 'At the time Jules Verne was writing, some people believed the earth was hollow,' he says. 'For readers in those days, a trip to the centre of the Earth, with dinosaurs and cavemen, was quite plausible.' Not that geology has lost its sense of adventure: Professor Sigurdsson recounts how his helicopter was rocked by the sonic boom of exploding gas bubbles as he hovered over the crater of Eyjafjallajökull. The eruption that brought European airports to a standstill he shrugs off as barely a blip.

Haraldur Sigurdsson is touched by an eccentric genius common to Icelanders. Visitors to these parts might hear about the optician erecting homemade wax stalagmites in caves; the record producer building his own troll garden beside a waterfall; the adventurer who has tweaked a Soviet missile launcher to transport tourists across the Langjökull glacier (and who one day hopes to build a concert venue out of the ice at the top). There is something about this empty land of lonely roads and rusting barns that seems to breed a peculiar resilience in its inhabitants.

We step out into the daylight in Stykkishólmur, and birds are circling above as a boat leaves the harbour. The professor points to the huge white mass beyond the tiny town. 'Snæfellsjökull isn't dormant,' he says, 'it's just taking a break.'

Snæfellsjökull
'A sheet of snow gleamed on the slopes of these distant mountains... the peaks brazenly pierced the grey cloud to reappear above the shifting vapours like reefs, suspended in the sky...' - Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

From Stykkishólmur, the road winds along fjords and over mountain passes to the foot of Snæfellsjökull and up to Verne's fabled passage to the centre of the Earth. Driving towards the peninsula's tip, it's clear that human settlement has hardly made a scratch on this barren landscape. Horses watch the few cars speeding past with the attentiveness of spectators at a tennis match. Sheep amble the roads, meeting drivers with looks of horror. Nameless waterfalls tumble down from the plateau above, while the shadows of clouds dance across treeless slopes.

A dirt track leads to the summit and the mist thickens as we ascend. There's something hallucinatory about climbing these mountains - drivers on one road have talked of sensing an extra passenger in the back seat. Mystics, too, have flocked to the volcano, claiming it as one of the planet's seven sources of spiritual energy.

It was on the summit that Professor Lidenbrock and Axel made their camp, waiting for the shadow of a nearby peak to pinpoint the crater where they were to begin their descent. Following their route is easier said than done. Parked directly on top of the mountain is a vast Ice Age glacier that Jules Verne, who never visited Iceland, neglected to mention in his novel. Any crater would have to be buried deep beneath thousands of tonnes of dense ice, so it's difficult to know where to start looking.

I'm about to leave empty-handed when the clouds break and, as Verne wrote, it seems Snæfellsjökull has sprung straight up from the seabed. Here, Axel claimed he was so 'engrossed by the exalted rapture of these soaring peaks... I forgot who I was and where I was.' Expanses of black rock swoop down to the shore, where lighthouses look little more than golf tees perched on the cliffs. Despite their presence, a glance at a map reveals the surrounding cape is strewn The church at Ingjaldsholl, below the towering peaks of Snæfellsjökull, was built in 1903, though it houses some older tombstones and a wonderful painted wooden altarpiece with shipwrecks: Anne Dorothea in 1817, Solöven in 1857 and Brilliant Star in 1882.

Far below, on the peninsula's southern beaches, stands the Hotel Buðir, a place where Professor Lidenbrock's party passed through on their journey to Snæfellsjökull, and a popular retreat for Icelandic writers and artists. Night closes in as I descend the mountain. The reflections of shooting stars light up the saltwater pools around the hotel, and the glacier glistens a brilliant white in the moonlight.

While staying at the hotel in the 1960s, Icelandic author Halldór Laxness wrote Under the Glacier, a story in which Snæfellsjökull induces hypnosis in a small community, leading them to believe that they could bring the dead back to life. Another legend tells of a half-troll whose daughter was pushed onto a passing iceberg by her cousin. The half-troll then murdered his nephew to avenge his lost daughter, unaware that she had drifted to safety in Greenland, before he retreated inside the mountain, where he hides broken-hearted to this day. Silhouetted against the night sky, it seems that this strange mountain has always fiercely guarded its secrets. I will just have to find a different way of getting inside.

Drangahraun
'Little did I realise what awaited us on the Snæfells peninsula, where the damage wreaked by impetuous nature had created a frightening chaos... though the volcanoes were extinct, the debris that remained bore witness to their former violence.' - Journey to the Centre of the Earth by Jules Verne

Maybe this is your passage to the centre of the Earth, maybe it isn't,' says Guðbjörg Gunnarsdóttir, the park ranger, pointing into a gloomy cave. 'It's not somewhere I'd want to go on my own anyway.'

We are in the lava fields, the strangest and saddest parts of the Icelandic landscape. In Drangahraun, the fury of Snæfellsjökull is recorded in stone - it feels as if every tide of molten rock had frozen still barely a moment ago. Black basalt steeples watch over sheep tracks, a labyrinth of alleyways that pick their way between convulsing rock formations, scorched earth where there were once green meadows.

'We tell children that this is where the elves live, so they keep away,' says Guðbjörg gesturing over the field. It takes little imagination to spot strange figures in the distance - clumps of rock scattered across the land by eruptions - but Guðbjörg is serious. 'People laugh at Icelanders' belief in elves and trolls, but it's not so simple. It's like radio waves - you know they're there, even though you've never seen them.'

Even without elves, there's more to the lava field than meets the eye. Buried under the rock are hidden caverns where, it is said, outlaws banished from Icelandic society took shelter hundreds of years ago. To the east at Hraunfossar, underground streams flow beneath lava fields. The cave beneath us is a dried-up watering hole for cows on the slopes of Snæfellsjökull, only recently emptied of tonnes of mud and snow to reveal a gaping tunnel beneath.

We descend into the Earth. Shining a torch into the gloom reveals boulders swept away in the lava flow, and shelves of rock running downhill and out of sight. The sunlight fades, and our footsteps echo. Verne's world of yawning crevices and subterranean monsters seems close by.

We go further, before Guðbjörg points to a second, deeper chamber, reached only by a rope. The dripping of water resonates around the cave, and I'm reminded of Axel's words in Journey to the Centre of the Earth: 'I had not yet peered into the fathomless pit into which I was about to venture. A rush of vertigo overcame me, and dizziness rushed to my head like wine. Nothing could be more intoxicating than the lure of the void.'

It's possible there are other tunnels yet to be explored, perhaps a whole network running deep beneath Snæfellsjökull and down into the innards of the planet. It's almost tempting to step into the pitch black, snatch a burning torch and begin our own subterranean adventure... but we turn back. After all, who would ever believe that what lies beneath our feet could be any stranger than the landscapes on the surface above?
Oliver Smith is a journalist who was named AITO Young Travel Writer of the Year for his article In Search of Lawrence's Arabia, in the May issue of Lonely Planet Magazine.
The article 'An Icelandic journey to the centre of the earth' was published in partnership with Lonely Planet Magazine.

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An Icelandic journey to the centre of the earth

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'"See the great fins!" shouts the professor. "See the air and water sprouting from the blowholes!" We stand, shocked, astonished, terrified at the sight of a shoal of sea monsters, the smallest of which could split our raft with a snap of its teeth.'