We awoke this morning to howling wind and horizontal rain, which is not unusual for Iceland, but the worst we've had since I've been here this year. It's hard to do much productively in such conditions, so most people worked in the lab for two hours.

It's a good idea to catch up on the myriad forms and drawings we use, to check them and cross-check them against each other and the computer databases used to track many things. It's far better to do this in the field with everyone present to be sure things are correct than to try to do it from memory later via email or phone.

It did clear up remarkably quickly about noon, however, and turned into a gorgeous day. As the project draws to a close, we're wrapping up some scattered sites here and there, so I've been making panoramas of them.

Panorama taken in a testpit one meter on a side, showing tephra layers. The project directors like this one quite a bit for what it shows – a real be-there view. Now that the hole's filled in, they can still see what it looked like today.




While waiting for John at one of the farmer's houses, I heard a strange sound a distance behind me. I turned and saw this owl landing with a rodent in its mouth. As I walked over to where it landed, it called a couple more times. When I took John to show him, it and another took off!




How the blustery day ended.