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Steinsholt

Region: South Iceland
Coordinates: 63.625673° N 19.6790622 ° W

About Steinsholt

Steinsholt is a 3 miles long summer pasture in the northern slopes of Mt Eyjafjoll. Its eastern and western boundaries are the glacier tongues Gigjokull and Steinsholtsjokull. Lagoons have been created at the edges of both glaciers and the main track for 4wd vehicles passes one of them. The area is indented with deep gorges with precipitous mountains inbetween, which made it very difficult to cover during the sheep roundups, and sometimes the sheep had to be roped down.

On January 15th 1967, a large chunk of the 400 m high Innstihaus precipice above Glacier Steinsholtsjokull broke off and was registered by the seizmographs at Kirkjubaejarklaustur, 75 km away. It heaped up on the ice and crushed it, and caused a tremendous floodwave from the lagoon at its edge. This wave carried big blocks of ice, big rocks, and debris a long way and at the peak of the flooding, the volume of water at the River Markarfljot bridge, 25 km away, was measured 2,100 m3/sec. The estimated total volume was between 1½ and 2½ million m3.

Steinsholt in Icelandic

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