Icelandic Glacier Web Portal

This web portal is a collaborative effort by Icelandic institutes, agencies, companies, societies and private persons to display an overview of glaciological research and variations of Icelandic glaciers. The portal provides access to measurements, observations and photographs over an interactive map.

Zoom in for more details. Photographs can be seen by clicking the camera icons.

A click on the snowflake icons will bring up a description of each glacier including dimensions, measurements and a description of what rivers or other water bodies emerge from the glacier. There is also a measurement tab where you can see how much the area of each glacier has (in most cases) decreased over time.

You can also turn on the historical outlines of each glacier to see how they have shrunk over time from circa 1890 (yellow lines) to 2019 (red lines).

There is much more to explore including graphs, links and photos here.

Thirty Day Map Challenge 2022 - Days 4 - 9

 

Yes, November is the month when I get to be self-indulgent and show off my #30DayMapChallenge maps so here come some more. The daily theme is listed after each day.

Day 4 - Green

For green day I made a map of Greenville, the one in South Carolina, giving it the 1980’s computer screen look. I brought down the resolution a bit for the pixellated feel and found a font from that era.

Day 5 - Ukraine

Locations of sunflower fields in Ukraine were taken from this Wikimedia Commons page. Most of the photos have location coordinates listed deep in their metadata. I used a caricatured country outline from Project Linework, except for Russia (not included in their data) which I drew my own coastline for.

Day 6 - Network

This was not my most successful idea but I’d been working on overlaying transit maps onto a cartogram (so the large urban areas have space). To be as objective as possible and keep this project from blowing up, I only used the “heavy rail” systems as listed by Wikipedia. The page lists 15 systems covering 12 metropolitan areas. I did not include San Juan, Puerto Rico because it’s not part of this cartogram. If I started including cities with “light rail” systems, I might need to add various suburban commuter systems and it would be a large slippery slope that I might never get up from. The cartogram was modified to remove some of the large empty area between Chicago and Los Angeles.

Day 7 - Raster

I may have “mailed this one in” a bit but I wanted to play with some color manipulations in GIMP. The original image came from this page from University of Michigan. I like the perspective.

Day 8 - OpenStreetMap

OpenStreetMap is the Wikipedia of geodata. I grabbed some ice cream places and mapped the Ísbíltúr - Iceland’s ice cream road trip tradition. All data including the coastlines and parks are from OpenStreetMap.

Day 9 - Space
 

I’ve never been to the Maine Solar System in Aroostook County but I hope to see it some day. Here is a map showing where the planet models are located. More on the system here. The picture of Saturn in situ was taken from Google, user Amy Doucette.

Iceland in Maps

A few days ago I was in Iceland. They like their maps there. Here are some examples.

They post maps along the side of the roads and where entering towns. Above is one near the Þingvellir National Park. The one below, in Stokkseyri, shows the extent of the largest lava flow on earth (since the ice age) - stopped finally by the ocean.

A 3D model of the Snæfellsness peninsula in the visitors center at Snæfellsjökull National Park.

Monument to Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth - the book's descent begins at the volcano above,

but the nearby monument has a hole (next to the wooden pole) where you can start digging. The sign below lists distances through the earth - the second distance is along the surface.

A map of the continental plates at the Bridge Between Continents near the Keflavik airport.

The bridge crosses a chasm formed by the separation of the plates. The rock walls on either side are the two continental plates.

Of course, I also accumulated many paper maps. Here was our most used map - the Islandskort series from Fixlanda.

Geothermal pools in the Reykjavik area.

Finally, here is a beautifully detailed map from Iceland's Geodætisk Institut that I bought at the Reykjavik Flea Market. The map is dated 1990 but the survey date is 1920.

I have lots of great scenery pictures too but the maps are the real highlights.

This Map of Iceland Has it All!

This map of Iceland*, part of the Theatrum Orbis Terrarum** by Flemish cartographer Abraham Ortelius has all kinds of interesting stuff going on.

From wonderfully detailed volcanoes,

to fantastic sea creatures with descriptions in the text keyed to letters.

This description is from a listing on Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps. Some versions of this map have the letters next to them and some do not.

H. The largest kind of Whale, which seldom shows itself. It is more like a small island than like a fish. It cannot follow or chase smaller fish because of its huge size and the weight of its body, yet it preys on many, which it catches by natural cunning and subtlety which it applies to get its food.

This map includes an early explanation of how polar bears arrived, drifting on sea ice.

In the right of this image are tree trunks that after some violent storms have been "torn off by their roots from the cliffs of Norway, tossed to and fro, and surviving many storms, finally cast upon and coming to rest at this shore."

The title block - differently colored in different versions.

In the lower right is a dedication to the "Illustrious and powerful Frederic the Second, King of the Danes, Norwegians, Slavs, Goths etc., his most merciful Majesty."

The level of detail of this map indicates that although it is credited to Ortelius it was probably drawn by an Icelander, most likely Gudbrandur Thorlaksson who mapped the island in the early 1600s. His list of churches and fjords was used and there is much local knowledge that is unlikely to have come from Ortelius.

There are several versions of the map online, the images above are from the following:

Barry Lawrence Ruderman Antique Maps - this page has the translations I used and some good historical context.

Islandskort

Wikimedia

*Where I am currently staying.
** "Theatre of the World" - considered to be the first modern world atlas.

Joan Blaeu's Remarkable World Atlas

Joan Blaeu produced a remarkable 11 volume atlas between 1662 and 1665. It was the largest book published during the 17th Century. 

These volumes were meant to be the first part of a larger series. The title translates to "Grand Atlas or Blaeu's Cosmography, in which are most accurately described earth, sea, and heaven" with a second part about the oceans and a third about the stars. However, he did not live long enough to publish those volumes.

This summer I went to the Osher Map Library in Portland, Maine to see their Pictorial Maps exhibit (see my previous blog post for a review.)  The first map in the exhibit though not "American" or part of the "Golden Age" was from this atlas and meant to show an early use of pictorial decorations on maps.

While I was there, they let me look at a volume of this atlas. I chose the first volume and took pictures of various pages, including the map above (though the image from Osher shown above is much better than my photo.) It was an amazing experience to hold a volume of this atlas in my hands. Unfortunately between the lousy notes I took and my lack of knowledge of Latin, I don't have much to add to the photos I took - here they are.

From the Introduction - the orbit of the known planets, going out as far as Saturn.

The first volume is mostly focused on the Arctic regions. Above is the island of Spitsbergen, below is the adjacent island of Jan Mayen with some great (and probably very exaggerated) details.

More easily recognizable to most people, Iceland.

In addition to maps, the atlas has some great pictorial details including this Walrus illustration,

and whatever this totem is. If I could read Latin, I might be able to figure it out. Note: see comments for a good explanation.

There are also details of buildings and other public and religious spaces. Again, I don't know what we're looking at here.

UPDATE: Reader Ted Kottler has identified this as Tycho Brahe's observatory on the island of Hven (aka Ven), Sweden in the Oresund, the strait between Sweden and Denmark. 

I'll finish up with one more map. After much curiosity and digging around, I figured out that the map below is part of the Nordfriesland district in Schleswig-Holstein, northern Germany along the border with Denmark. I'm still not sure what the underwater streams are - some elaborate planned land reclamation, ocean drainage project?

Once again, I would like to thank the kind and helpful staff at the Osher Map Library for allowing me to see and hold this atlas. Though the pictorial map exhibit is over, there are still lots of great things to see there.

Fire and Iceland

I've received about a dozen emails recently alerting me to the "(insert a number) Maps that will Change Your Life, Promote Good Dental Health, and Help You Lose Weight" type of articles.* Most of their titles are overly dramatic but good for getting the clicks. Many of the maps featured are difficult for a jaded cartographer to get excited about. However, this map of Iceland from Wired Science's Most Amazing, Beautiful and Viral Maps of the Year (2013) really stands out.

 The concept is very simple, even though the process was a little convoluted. It is just a series of 20 meter contours classified by color. The yellow to orange to red color scheme is unusual and creates an arresting fiery look. Of course the volcanoes (the fiery places) are the lightest yellow making the color scheme less realistic but if you reversed the colors the image would lose its dramatic effect.

Another sacrifice is that the background land and water are barely distinguished, very dark grey for land and black for water. You have to zoom in a ways on the interactive version to see the distinction. This adds drama by making the coastline look much more jagged than it really is. Here is an example where you see some false bays around Húsavík in the northeast.

Compare that with google maps

It's a nice striking representation, just don't try to use it as a nautical chart.

*friend of the blog Michael5000 has a fun and well done critique of one of these listings here.

Map of the Week-GOOD Volcano Map

GOOD is an online journal that asks the question "what is good right now?" One of the highlights is their "transparency" series of graphics and maps. The latest transparency shows how small the recent Eyjafjallajökull volcanic eruption in Iceland was compared to other historic volcanoes. The disruption to the economy and to air traffic was huge but as the graphic indicates we should expect much worse in the future.

The tall orange triangles on the map are "decade volcanoes." I've never heard that term either but according to the description page it means a volcano "currently noted to have a history of large eruptions and a proximity to populated areas."  In other words if one of those blows it's really going to mess things up.