Kirkjugólf

Kirkjugólfið or ‘the Church Floor’ is just east of the village of Kirkjubæjarklaustur. The floor is an 80 square meter expanse of columnar basalt stone slabs, where you can see the top of the columns. However, there has never been a church there, but the tiles look as if they might be man-made.

This floor was however created by glacial- and wave erosion, which eroded into a lava layer and left the columns exposed. Basalt columns are formed because of contraction in cooling basaltic melt, so that the rock shrinks and splits into pillars that are often hexagonal but can be three- to twelve-sided.

The columns are always perpendicular to the cooling surface, i.e. point in the direction from which the cooling comes. You can also see beautiful cliffs near the Church Floor, which are made of palagonite tuff and were sea cliffs when the waves were shaping the Church Floor.