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Eldey

A small, 77-meter-high steep rock island located about 15 kilometers south of Reykjanes. The structure of Eldey is basaltic hyaloclastite and is only 0.5 square kilometers in area. Eldey is the innermost ridge in a great ridge barrier which stands on a single reef 45 sea miles from the shore. One of these ridges was Geirfuglasker, where the last breeding colonies of the Great Auk was located, but it disappeared mostly from the surface during submarine eruptions in and around 1830. One of the biggest gannet colonies in the world is still surviving on Eldey. According to a count, the number of gannets breeding there during summer counts tens of thousands.