Sandwort, Seabirds, and Surtsey
It was 1964. Our guide, a long-time friend who worked as an engineer for the government of Iceland, was showing us the significant sights near his home town of Reykjavik. "The spot we've come to now," he announced as the car rounded a bend, "offers one of the most remarkable vistas on our south coast. To the right, on the horizon out to sea, is the huge plume being formed as the volcanic heat of the new island of Surtsey meets the cold ocean water."
Icelanders have a great sense of humor. The fog was so thick we could barely see to the sides of the road. I never did glimpse the newborn island rising from the Atlantic Ocean, but Surtsey always holds a special fascination.
In some ways, it's remarkable that Surtsey is still around to interest anyone. The frequent eruptions on and off Iceland kick up new little islands now and again, but---like the two that have formed since Surtsey quit erupting in 1968---they usually are soon washed and blown away. That happens partly because the eruptions often contain much ash and little lava, and partly because the area has weather that challenges even the Aleutians. Records made on Surtsey itself show 200 days a year of gale force winds. Offshore, waves have been measured at 85 feet.
Surtsey is similar to an island in the Aleutians, but its youth makes it unique. Iceland has declared the half-square-mile island a scientific preserve, set aside for studies in a natural environmental laboratory. This has given biologists an unusual opportunity to watch brand new ecosystems develop.
In some cases, "ecosystem" is as yet far too grand a word for the patches and communities of organisms on Surtsey. The only plant that seems to be gaining ground on the island's outer slopes is a tough sea sandwort, a flowering plant that ranges around arctic shores even to Bering Strait. The succulent sandwort produces seeds that can withstand floating about for a while in salt water, so it survived the trip from shore to island. It is low growing and forms thick clumps, and thus is less likely to be blown away than shrubbier or more wind-catching vegetation would be. The sandwort's clumping habit helps trap the sand-sized particles its roots need to survive, as well as any organic matter that might arrive with the wind or drop from the plant. The sandwort is slowly building its own soil.
The sandwort patches are still few and far between. Thicker vegetation has grown up within the now quiet craters. Sheltered from the wind, mosses and their kindred form a thickening carpet over much of the once-bare lava. (Mosses, in fact, were the first plants to make a stand on Surtsey. A hundred or so species have tried to colonize the island, but they succumb to the weather wherever the wind can rip them from the gritty earth or rip the grit away from their roots.)
On Surtsey, life is most complex where sea and land interact. As a minor example, a species of small fly is one of the few animals to live full-time on the island; the flies feed on the marine algae growing on the shoreside rocks.
Far more conspicuous are other animals now making Surtsey their home. Hundreds of seabirds have moved in. Fulmars, kittiwakes, gulls, and guillemots can be found in season on the oceanside cliffs. They seem willing to cope with the weather in exchange for the absence of human interference.
Land at the base of the bird-inhabited cliffs harbors the richest vegetation, twenty-odd species of vascular plants, mostly grasses. For now, the scientists report, it is the only place on Surtsey where the vegetation looks like that elsewhere in Iceland---thanks to bird-processed fish fertilizer.
